An American Yankee in Nasuada's Court
by The Logician's Apprentice
Summary: American inventor and genius William Wyatt is trapped in the land of Alagaësia. When he finds that people have no idea what modern technology is, he realizes that he has a chance to change the course of history...but for better or for worse? Set during Brisingr. T for violence, language, and the scent of lime. Boring at first but action-packed in later chapters.
1. Wrong Place, Wrong Time

AUTHOR'S NOTE: REMEMBER THAT UPDATES WILL BE LESS FREQUENT BECAUSE OF SCHOOL BUT I WILL NOT ABANDON THE STORY.

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An American Yankee in Nasuada's Court

by The Logician's Apprentice

**Wrong Place, Wrong Time**

Most people in this modern world of ours have no idea how to repair a clogged sink or fix a broken toilet. We take a break from our white-collar office job to call upon the lowly plumber, mechanic, or electrician who can do the dirty work for us while we order another set of stocks from our e-broker. When we get a flat tire, we don't pull over, whip out our jack and start fixing! We whip out our cell phones and call AAA for a quick rescue.

That's where I was different. I grew up fascinated by things and bursting to find out how they worked. My parents, God rest their stinking rich souls, thought me a child-genius and were only too happy too indulge my desires to understand as much as I could. While a girl in California could tell you all about the features of an iPhone app, I could tell you all the steps there were to making that iPhone on an assembly line. A boy in Colorado could tell you how many bad guys James Bond shot in his last movie, but I could tell you how to make Bond's Walther PPK and it's ammunition.

I had more books, blueprints, and diagrams in my room than files on my father's computer. When I graduated from a prestigious private high school, I enrolled in **[name withheld for legal reasons]** and studied several topics ranging from engineering to computer programming. I had an internship at the patent office for a brief while. I saw all sorts of experimental designs that sparked my own imagination.

With my fathers blessing (and his funding) I started my own company, Wyatt Industries. Using bits and pieces pulled off other designs I had seen at the patent office (they say copying is the highest form of praise, and I believe it) and my own improvements, I invented a new type of power generator: the proton defraculator. It generated clean, renewable energy by splitting the shells of protons and shooting the quarks through a sort of atomic net made of Hydrogen atoms. The best part: I could power it with 5% of it's own output. I could offer power at insanely cheap prices.

I was the symbol of success. I made a fortune. But what my father loved to laugh about, and what drove him and all my investors crazy with glee was that there was only one way to make a proton defraculator work. You couldn't do it with any other atomic piece, and it couldn't be improved any more. There was only one way. And my company had the patent. My face went on all the magazines and newspapers when I put five different power companies out of business in the same month.

I was called the god of energy; I was heralded as a saint for stopping half of all carbon emissions in their tracks. I passed twenty billion dollars when California announced that solely my company powered it. I had a photograph of me shaking the president's hand in front of my Washington D.C. plant. Thanks to Citizens United, I could decide the outcome of any election in the United States.

Despite my cheap prices, I could afford to give away billions to charity. I paid for the boats that cleaned up the great pacific garbage patch. I ran my own brand of e-reader to stop half of all deforestation in the Amazon. Not one person could doubt that I was the savoir of the planet. I had a legacy that beat all others. It could be summed up in the single photo of me letting a polar bear sniff my hand. I liked that one. It went right next to the president on my desk. The money just kept rolling in.

All this at age 29, mind.

My passion for knowing things never stopped. I spent a month living with the Dalia Lama after I arranged his return to Tibet. I learned methods of organizing my brain to store as much information in my head as I could. Sherlock Holmes, eat your heart out.

It was a bit after this that my adventure started. Thanks to Mr. Lama, I remember the whole experience as though it were yesterday.

I was at my vacation house with my latest girlfriend. It was dark, and I was in the small kitchen on a conference call with my board of directors, agreeing to launch a new series of e-reader. When it was all settled, I hung up. I was going to go upstairs to my bed and, more importantly, my girl, when I looked out the small window over the sink and saw an eerie green glow lighting the grass out side the cabin. Doing the stupid thing, I grabbed my coat and ran out to investigate. The circle of light was still there. It was about five feet wide. Of course I thought it was aliens. Who wouldn't? I ran back inside and grabbed two things: my cell phone and a canister of pepper spray from my girlfriend's purse. I ran back outside and snapped off about a dozen pictures. Oddly, when I looked up into the sky, I couldn't see anything besides the stars. I thought that maybe the source was only visible from directly beneath it. So I stepped into the circle of light. The instant my foot entered the patch of brightly lit grass, my vision went black. I didn't have time to panic before I felt a falling sensation, and then a jolt of impact. My breath was pushed out of me in an explosive _whoosh_, and I passed out.

When I came to, I was lying on soft grass. I sat up. I was in a field of green. I looked behind me, expecting to see the cabin, but it wasn't there. There was just more grass. Now I had plenty of time to panic. There was no sign of civilization in sight. I whipped out my phone. No service.

For reassurance, I pulled out the can of pepper spray. I had no idea what was going on. I willed myself to stay calm. I turned off my phone and slid it back into my pocket. I was so bewildered it took me a moment to realize that it was broad daylight. It should have been night. I thought about using my phone's compass but I could not think of any direction I should go. I tightened my grip on the pepper spray and choose a random way.

I had only walked a couple hundred feet when I came to a dirt road that cut through the endless meadow. Finally, something was going right. I figured I could find a gas station and find out where I was and then get a ride back to civilization. After following the bumpy trail for what felt like half a mile, I found myself on the outskirts of some town. The houses looked like a throwback to the 19th century. I figured it was just some sort of rural retreat, a place people could go to get away from it all. I checked for service again, but got nothing. I gave the village a closer look. Then it hit me: no power lines. Nothing that looked newer than the Gold Rush.

As I stepped into the town, faces peered at me through windows. They all looked scared or solemn. Toward the center of the village, some men were filling buckets with water from a well. I was blown away. A well? First no power, but no running water? These people must be insane. It was clearly some sort of funny farm thing. No sane person would live like this.

As I got closer, I realized that the men were dressed in some sort of tunic thing, made of some sort of rough cloth. It didn't look comfortable at all.

"Excuse me," I said to one of them. He turned to look at me, a sour expression on his face like I had just told him I was from the IRS. Then his expression changed to surprise, and he just stood staring at me like a loon. _These people must be whacked, _I thought. No other possibility. The way he stared at my clothes, it was as if I was dressed in a spacesuit. I was wearing jeans, a tee shirt, and a North Face jacket. From the way he looked at me, my skin might have been green and luminous.

"Pardon me, but could you tell me where the hell I am?" I asked, trying to keep my irritation at his reaction invisible.

"You're in Marna," said a voice behind me. I turned and saw another man, this one slightly younger. He too looked at me queerly, but he was earing a bemused expression, rather than one of utter shock.

I racked my considerable brains. I had never heard of the place. Maybe I was in a deferent country. However, these people spoke English with no trace of difficulty, so I doubted that they were foreign. That left North America and the UK. I ruled out England because they had no trace of a British accent. _Screw where this place is_, I thought. _I'll just pay whatever it takes to get a helicopter out here and bring me back home._

"Do you have a phone I can use? I'll pay any long-distance cost."

They both looked at me like I was a zarg from Planet X-5.

"A what?" asked the younger one. The older guy just looked at me, oblivious to the water in his bucket slopping onto his shoes. I took a second look at his shoes. They looked nothing like my New Balance sneakers. And he had no socks. It was like I had been teleported to _Little House on the Prairie. _With a sinking feeling, I wondered if I had. They clearly had no idea what a telephone was. They were English speaking whites.

The sinking feeling deepened as I realized with crushing certainty. There were two possibilities. The first was that I had lost my marbles. The second was even worse. I wasn't in a different country. I was in a different world.


	2. An Unexpected Journey Begins

**An Unexpected Journey Begins**

I couldn't tell you why, but the minute the thought crossed my mind, I was sure this was the case. The beam must have been some sort of experimental teleportation device that had popped me out on the other side of the multiverse or whatever. Until I found it again, I was stuck here. Part of me wished I had just gone mad.

But another part of me thought, if these people really were peasants straight out of the middle ages, I was going to dominate them. I was a billionaire on Earth, but here, I was going to be a god.

"Never mind the phone," I said hurriedly to the men. "Who's in charge here? Who's the pres-er-leader?"

I got a quick answer this time. "King Gabaltorix." Said the young man.

_Gabaltorix. Never heard of him_, I thought. The fact that a king ruled these people meant that this really was as close to the middle ages as I would get. I figured I could get myself a position close to this king if I demonstrated my superior knowledge. Then I could figure out a way to get the hell back to Earth. One thing troubled me, though. The way the man said the king's name, it sounded as if they were scared of him. Maybe he was just another unfortunate fellow like me, stuck in a place were people would, if shown a modern television, run away screaming witchcraft.

Well, first things first. "Where can I find this, ah, King Gablowick?" I asked, trying to sound mildly curious.

Again, they gave me the zarg-from-Planet-X-5 look. "He can be found in Urû'baen. All though you wouldn't be wise to seek him out." Finally, the older man had found his voice. He looked like he wanted to explain further, but another flash of fear swept his face.

I was starting to like this King less and less. I was reminded of Stalin, keeping himself in power by relocating any threats to Siberia or a more permanent exile. If he was a guy like me, he would be revered by the people as an incarnation of some god. I got the feeling he was just another one of these fools, and that with a little demonstration, I could convince him to appoint me Grand High Emperor of whatever this place was.

"How far is it to this place?" I asked.

"To far to go on foot and make it by next month."

Hmm. I would need to rent a car or…or a horse. This tiny town was as likely to harbor a Hertz outlet as the men in front of me were likely to produce cell phones and ask my number.

Both men had filled their buckets and were just standing there watching me. Other people had come out of the puny houses to gape at me. The men had gotten over my appearance and were warming up to me, correctly realizing that I was not some wandering bum, but a force to be respected.

"I don't suppose I could borrow a horse?" I addressed the crowd at large. There was silence for a bit, then an old man at the back of the crow raised his hand.

"I have an old mare who isn't good for much these days. I was plannin' on givin' 'er to the butcher, but you can have her, 'cause you look like you need a ride," he said simply.

"Excellent! I'll take her!" I didn't like horses too much, but I'd taken riding lessons and new how to handle a horse. I just hoped that the horse would be up to the journey to King Gallowbrick's front door. I could pack a bag with some food and be one my way before sunset. It looked to be early afternoon, with not a cloud in the sky.

I thanked the two men for their help and made my way to the back of the crowd. The old man was leaning against a rotting wooden doorway. He beckoned with a finger and led me behind the house to a pen where five or so horses were tied up. He pointed to a tired-looking white horse and said,

"Her name's Sunshine. She ain't much to look at but she was a fine horse in 'er day."

I beamed. It was going according to plan. "Thanks so much, mister."

He scratched his head and said, "Where're you headed? I heard someone say Urû'baen. S'it true?"

"Yup."

"Then you want to head south." So my phone would be of use after all. I thanked my lucky stars I had an EnerPlex case on it. I thanked the old man again and gave the old horse a pat on the head.

"C'mon, Sunshine. Let's go." As I trotted serenely out of the town, I heard someone cry, "Hey, wait up!"

I turned in the saddle. It was the Younger man. He hurried toward me, clutching a blanket wrapped around some apples. The fruit looked great, better than organic. I thanked he guy. He looked to be about my age. I vowed that if…no, _when, _I found my way out of this feudal nightmare, I would offer to bring him along.

"Thanks, man." I felt almost touched. He looked like he wanted to say more, but he just gave a sort of awkward bow and strode away. I tied the bundle to the horse and pointed her to some distant hills on the horizon.

"All right, Sunny, let's go."


	3. A Fateful Encounter

Author's note: well, I hope you guys like the story so far! I suppose I may be hastening things along a bit, but, hey, I'm dying to write the juicy bits. FYI, I have never used pepper spray so I'm not sure what it's really like. Oops…did I give anything away? :)

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** A Fateful Encounter**

Riding was largely uneventful. I pondered my situation as I passed through endless strands of tall grass. Sunshine (when she burped, the smell tempted me to rename her "Moonshine") was a sturdy animal, and I couldn't understand why the old fellow wanted her ground into meatballs. I shuddered at the thought.

Onto more serious matters: my situation. My plan remained the same. Get to the capitol, and awe the king into making me one of the most powerful people in the realm. I figured my iPhone would make a nice first impression, and once I got my hands on the right materials, I could make fireworks. I laughed aloud, imagining the looks on the peasants' faces as the sky seemingly exploded over them. It could be a sight none of them would ever forget.

After about an hour of slow plodding, my mind dull from thinking the same thoughts over and over, I thought,_ to hell with saving energy,_ and pulled out my phone for some Angry Birds. After my hiatus from anything remotely modern, my eyes rejoiced at the sight of a bright LCD screen. In fact, I was so involved in exploding green, luminous pigs that I didn't notice the riders until they were a mere fifty feet away. When I saw them, I quickly slid the phone back into my pocket, grabbed the reigns, put an expression of serenity on my face, and waited for them to pass.

My unconcern turned to uneasiness when I saw that the riders slowed when they came within thirty feet. There were three of them. They had what looked to be swords strapped to their waists, and shields slung over their backs. _Dang,_ I thought, _bona fide knights._

As we neared, I could feel their eyes rake my clothes. They had a shifty look about them, as though they were trying to avoid being noticed. Well, they had nothing to fear from me.

"Ahoy, there!" I called merrily to them when we drew even. One of them mumbled something, but was hushed by another. This one looked at me and said, "We're in a hurry, sir, and would prefer to be on our way in good time." He sounded pompous and arrogant, but I had the feeling he was nervous. Again I had the feeling they were acting sneaky. Were they rogues or outlaws? Had they looked me over and decided I wasn't worth robbing? Whoever they were, they all looked away from me.

They would have rode away without incident, except my phone suddenly let out the squawk of a kamikaze bird attacking a squealing pig. I had forgotten to turn off my phone when I shoved it in my pocket. The three riders turned to me curiously. The squawk sounded again. I tried to shrug, but I couldn't shake the grimace off my face. What were these men going to think of a bird cawing from inside my jacket?

"How're you doin' that?" asked the rider who had mumbled earlier. He had close-cropped black hair and a pale, pointed face. He looked nervous and curious at the same time. The man who had spoken, whom I guessed to be the leader, eyed me suspiciously.

I prayed the birds would shut up, but if anything, they got louder. I shrugged again and gave a sharp jerk on my reigns. Sunshine neighed loudly and started to trot away.

"Hey, wait a moment!" The riders caught up to me in an instant. "Tell us how you're doing that!" Said the leader in a commanding voice. I smiled.

"Sorry, gents. A magician never reveals his tricks," I grinned.

This statement had a powerful effect on the men. They froze and looked at me warily. I wondered if there were fake wizards who people believed could do real magic. These people seemed so barbaric that t didn't sound farfetched at all. Now that I thought about it, maybe there would be a magician assisting the king, like Merlin to King Arthur. In fact, maybe the king was a self-proclaimed magician as well.

"You're a magician?" the leader asked warily.

"Maybe, maybe not," I grinned.

The younger man snarled. "I don't believe it. You've got a bird on you somewhere." He suddenly grinned, but it was a wicked sort of grin. "We've been on stale rations all week. I could do with some meat!"

The events seemed to unfold in slow-motion. He pulled a short knife from a concealed sheath, and his horse leapt toward me. I reacted instantly. My hand had been curled around the pepper spray, and now, in a single movement, I pulled it out and blasted the man square in the face. He dropped the knife at once, and both hands clutching his face, slid from his saddle onto the ground, and wailed, "Ahh! He's blinded me! Oh god, it burns! AAH!"

The response from the other two riders was immediate. The last one, who had yet to say a word, produced a bow and arrow, and promptly aimed it at my face. An arrow-to-the-knee joke popped into my head unexpectedly. _I used to be an adventurer like you, but then I took an arrow to the knee._ Sadly, it was not the last time I would be reminded of Skyrim.

"What did you do to him?!" Shouted the leader, any attempt at secrecy abandoned. He rolled the man on the ground over and pried his hands from his face. "Ugh!"

The fellow's face had turned an angry red and his eyes were bloodshot. Tears ran down his face. "Make it go away!" He pleaded.

The leader drew his sword and pointed it threateningly in my direction. "Lift your enchantment!" He commanded.

"It's not an enchantment," I said, keeping a wary eye on the man with the bow. "Just rinse his eyes out with water." I had no idea if that was what you were supposed to do, but it made the most sense. The leader produced an old-fashioned water skin and doused the younger man's face in water. His moans subsided a bit, and he went down to quiet sniffling.

"Of your horse," ordered the rider with the bow. I was in no position to make a counter-argument, as he was out of range of my spray bottle.

I dismounted and was immediately hid over the head by the leader. White stars flashed in my face as the leader who had whacked me with the butt of his sword said, "Tie him to his horse and the horse to yours. He's coming with us."


	4. From Riches to Rags

Author's note: Well! Things have heated up! If you haven't guessed who's captured our hero yet, you'll know soon enough! Also: I changed my pen name, but it's still the same me! Also, I've done my best to follow the book, but some details might slip by me, so sorry if you find any discrepancies!

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**From Riches to Rags**

You may have guessed, but as one of the world's richest men, I led a rather pampered life. I had never been hit before, and the whack I received now was enough to send me into oblivion. I came to about an hour later. I was sitting upright on Sunshine. My hands were tied to the reigns. I saw that ropes connected Sunshine's saddle to that of the horse in front of me. I hoped that the riders wouldn't knock me out again as soon as they saw I was conscious.

"Er…where are we headed?" I asked cautiously.

"Back to camp. Now shut up," one of them grunted without turning to look at me. I hoped this meant they weren't going to bash my face in and leave me for dead.

Time passed uneventfully. The sun sank and set. Rather than risk antagonizing my captors by questioning them further, I tried to get some sleep. The fact that they had relieved me of my phone and pepper spray didn't help me relax. I doubted they knew what either of them was, but it didn't alleviate any stress.

We entered into something resembling a desert. It was too dark for me to see anything in the distance. After another hour, we dismounted our horses. My hands remained tied. The riders became more relaxed and chattier. I listened to them talk as I hungrily munched on an apple.

"You think Nasuada will be interested in him?"

"I doubt it."

"You guys didn't feel it! I felt like he shot fire at me, but I'm totally fine now!"

"So he might be a magician. The Varden's got plenty already."

"I ain't ever seen a spell like that. I wish I knew how he did it."

"It's not natural, magic. I'd rather fight a foe with a good sword than blast him with thunder. It's just not right."

"You'd reject magic even if you could use it? Really?"

"I wouldn't. Darned useful."

The way these people talked, it was as though they had seen feats out of Harry Potter. Could magicians really work magic in this place? I hoped not. The last thing I needed was an encounter with some Voldemort-wanna-be.

Travel passed uneventfully. I was woken roughly at dawn. We mounted our horses and rode off. A sort of pattern was established. We never strayed from the desert and only slept at night. The riders kept watch in shifts while the others slept. I was not sure if it was to keep an eye on me or to watch for other intruders. My main concern, now that I didn't think they were going to chop my head off, was a growing feeling of grubbiness. When you're used to a daily shower and mint toothpaste, it's hard to adjust to waking up and going to bed feeling like you've been used as a broom to sweep under the world's largest bed. I just hoped that I could have a hot bath at our final destination. It didn't seem too farfetched, if the attitudes of my captors were anything to go by.

They regarded me with curiosity, not fear or hate. Even the one I had Maced didn't seem overly hostile besides an occasional glower in my direction. He seemed proud to have weathered my "spell" so well. I supposed he would just impress friends with the story over a beer when he got home.

On the afternoon of the fourth day, we reached what the leader had called "camp." It was a mix of permanent buildings and tents. Several large pavilions sat near each other in the middle.

A mix of people turned out to see us. They were a strange bunch: some armed like my captors, a few children, and some women and older folk. I was let down from my horse. One of the riders grabbed my arms. It was unnecessary. I had nowhere to escape to. Not that I had any plans of going anywhere. I was led through the crowd (I was quite used to all the gawping at my clothes by now) and brought to a bright red pavilion. Several guards waited by the door. The leader of my group exchanged a few words with him before the guard nodded and stepped aside for us to enter.

It was roomy and cool inside. I was relieved to be out of the sun after nearly four days solid exposure. If not for my Hawaiian tan covering 90% of my body, I would have been badly sunburned by now. I quickly took stock of my surroundings. The presence of so many guards suggested I was finally in the presence of someone important. I waited in tense silence for this person to appear. The guards who hadn't escorted me back were still goggling at me. The ones who were used to my appearance looked anxious and impatient. Finally, a flap at the back was swept aside. A young, pretty looking black girl stepped through. All the men present stiffened. Their posture would have made Lumo proud. I gathered that this girl must be a princess or something. Since this tent-favela hardly seemed like a royal palace, I gathered that this girl had to be a daughter of the main commander here. I was almost right.

"Lady Nasuada," the leader of my group bowed deeply with respect. "We found this man was found near the Hadarac Desert while on a scouting mission. He used some sort of spell to blind one of my men before we restrained him. We don't know where he was headed but we thought that you might have some use for him."

The black girl, Lady Nasuada, was clearly in charge. It was a pleasant role reversal to see an African-American receiving so much respect. I supposed that there was some other word for them in this world, as I doubted very much they had places like Africa or America.

Nasuada studied me closely. Her eyes roved around my clothes, but to her credit, she didn't gape like the rest of the peasants. She looked right into my eyes.

"What is your name, stranger?" She asked. What was this, a Western?

"Name? My name's William Wyatt," I beamed. "Of Wyatt Indus...oh, let's just leave it there."

"What purpose have you here, Mister...Wyatt?" She asked coolly. If she thought my name weird, she didn't show it.

"Actually," I said, "I was hoping to meet King Gallowbrick." Instantly the atmosphere went from tense to hostile.

"So," she said coldly. "You are under his command, are you?"

"Good heavens no," I said, bewildered. Why would these people hate the king so much? Maybe he had raised the taxes recently. "I was thinking of getting a job with him. Public-sector jobs are the best."

She blinked. "Where have you come from?"

"That's the thing," I sighed. "I'm sort of lost…with no idea what's going on or where I am. I was outside Marna when your men found me. I don't know where this place is or who any of you are."

Nasuada listened without tearing her gaze from me. It struck me why she was the leader here. She was pretty, yes, but she was clearly smart and streetwise. I figured that she could make the right decision when it counted. Still, she seemed a bit young to be a leader.

"You don't know where you are?" She said, her eyes narrowed with suspicion. She turned to a guard near the tent entrance. "Fetch Trianna."

A few minutes passed after the man ran off. When he came back, he was leading woman into the tent. She was nice looking, but gave off an aura of power and feminism. She reminded me of woman I met once in England. Glancing at me for a brief moment, she gave a polite nod to Nasuada.

"Trianna, I need you to search this man's mind and tell us if he is a threat from the Empire," Nasuada told her. Search my mind? What?

"Certainly, Lady Nasuada." The woman turned to me.

Suddenly, I felt something. It wasn't physical, but rather some mental prickle. The prickle intensified. Suddenly, I felt something sweep through my mind. I freaked out. Was I going mad? Suddenly the presence receded.

"What was that?!" I demanded. They both ignored me.

Turning back to Nasuada, Trianna said, "This man is strange indeed. He has no memories beyond arriving in Marna and being brought here."

"What? That's not possible!" Nasuada snapped.

"I detected no concealment," said Trianna calmly. "This man has not hid anything from me. Somehow he has come here with no knowledge of himself. I cannot explain it, only state it." I wanted him to state what she had just done to my head.

"If I may be so bold as to inject my professional opinion," I said loudly, looking from Trianna to Nasuada, "I believe I have found myself here for a reason."

"Oh? And what reason is that?" Said Nasuada with forced calm.

"To help you. To help the-" What had the riders called it? "-the Varden. I can assure you I am no servant of the, uh, Empire."

Trianna smiled. "There is a way to quickly see if you speak the truth. Repeat these lines: 'Eka weohnata néiat haina ono. Fricai un eka eddyr.'"

Nonplussed, I repeated the gibberish. She turned to Nasuada. "He has just promised in the Ancient Language that he means us no harm and that he is a friend. I see no reason you cannot trust him."

Nasuada nodded. "Very well. I will not deny we could use more able men. If he wishes to fight with us, then send him to the barracks." Whoa, whoa, whoa. Fight? Huh?

"Milady," I said with as much respect as I could muster, "when I was brought here, I was relieved of my, er, effects. May I have them back?"

Nasuada looked at my former captor. He quickly pulled out my cell phone and the pepper spray bottle. I gratefully grabbed them and stuffed them in my pockets.

"One last thing," said Nasuada. "What are those clothes you wear?"

"Oh, just some cotton and fleece to keep in body heat and expel cold," I smiled at her confusion, and with a guard escort, I left the tent.


	5. Finally Useful

Author's note: So William has joined the Varden! He doesn't seem the type to grab a sword and start chopping off heads though. Maybe he'll be able to put his other talents to use against the Empire…

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**Finally Useful**

I pondered my situation. My plan was shot. Meeting King Garrowix was no longer an option. However, the way people talked about him, I was really not looking forward to meeting him at all.

On the other hand, I was not looking forward to fighting, as everyone here seemed to love. I did not want to go from pioneer of zero-point energy to a common foot soldier. Maybe I could make myself a gun or something. I knew from my failed attempts to fence that if I had to fight someone with a sword, I was better off running in the opposite direction. I was just wondering if I could make use of my archery practice with a bow when I was distracted by something very strange.

A small group of midgets were gathered around the embers of a dying fire, talking and drinking merrily. A second look revealed that they all had waist-low beards. They were singing some rude drinking song and clanking their tankards full of some type of mead when it hit me: not midgets, dwarves. Was it possible? I half expected Legolas to stroll out of the nearest tent and join in their song. Was Gandalf about to apparate right in front of me? Actually, that would be pretty cool.

I sped up until I was even with my escort. I nudged him and whispered, "Where those dwarves?"

"Yup," he said without bothering to look at them.

"Like, dwarves who work in mines deep under mountains?"

"Yup."

Holy crap. I probably was going to meet Gandalf any second.

We reached another large pavilion that I assumed to be an armory of sorts. Rows of weapons, new and old, some razor sharp, others lame and dull, lay on cushions and in chests. Behind the tent was a small training ground. Men were hacking away at each other with a variety of blades and armor.

A large man bustled out from the back of the tent. He looked at me and grinned. "New blood, eh? I'm Fredric, the Varden's weapon master. Need a blade?"

"Yes," I said, grinning myself. Something about this man's friendly air put me at ease.

"Well, I suppose you'll have to choose." He gestured to the wide array of weapons. My eye flashed from sword to knife to what I thought was a machete. Somehow I didn't find the idea of stabbing someone appealing. The idea of someone's blood on my hands, literally, was appalling. I could tell I would have to do some fighting before Nasuada realized my potential.

I gestured to a crossbow that rested on top of a crate of arrows. "How about that?"

Fredric glanced at the crossbow. "So, not a sword fighter, eh? Archer more your style? Have you any experience with this type of weapon, um…?"

"William," I said. "Yes, I have experience. Is that your best type?" I nodded at the bow. Fredric set it on the counter between us.

"Yup," he grinned. "It can puncture a shield from thirty paces."

"Why isn't there a repeater mechanism?"

His smile faltered. He blinked. "A what, now?"

"A repeater…oh, never mi—wait!" My face flushed. My fingers tingled. "Do you have wood? Nails? Arrows?"

He looked at me closely. "We have these things. Why do you want them?"

"I can build a repeating mechanism for these crossbows!" I said, fighting to keep my voice down. Finally I had a way to demonstrate my ability! "I'll need some more materials, but I think I can do it." I rattled off a dozen parts and pieces. To his credit, Fredric listened closely and then ordered a younger boy to fetch the materials. Part of me that wasn't focused at the prospect of making the "new" weapon felt relieved he wasn't ordering I be tied up and tossed into a padded room.

After a few minutes the boy returned with a wooden box. I pulled out some blocks of wood, some small pieces of metal, a hammer, and some nails. As I scanned the assortment of materials, I felt relieved that they all looked to be the right sizes. I got to work, talking to Fredric all the while. "See, I'm nailing them together with a quarter inch gap to allow room for this metal piece to fit in, and if I string through here, I can pull the lever the lever, which will fit there, to move the shaft over the ridge…" I wasn't sure if he was listening. I was aware of him watching me, but he seemed more puzzled than interested.

It took me about twenty minutes to finish my work. A small group of men gathered to watch me work. Finally, I mounted the repeater onto the crossbow and hit another few nails home. "Ha!" I exclaimed triumphantly.

"Er…what will it do now?" asked Fredric nervously.

"Let me show you," I gushed excitedly. "Where do you have a target range?"

My excitement was infectious. Fredric smiled and said, "Follow me." I grabbed a bunch of arrows out of a basket and we weeded our way through the crwds of sparring men until we got to a small archery range. Fredric shoed a man with a bow out of the way and said to me, "Well? What will it do?"

I loaded the arrows. As I had calculated, four fit snugly into the magazine. I racked the lever and aimed at the target. THWAP! A near bull's-eye. I grinned at Fredric.

"Now watch this!" I shot off the three other arrows in quick succession. Each hit the target with a satisfying THWAP. Fredric's jaw dropped. At his request, I showed him how I loaded in the arrows and how the lever loaded the arrow and strung the bow. I suggested we show it to Nasuada immediately, but Fredric insisted on testing it himself. It dragged on for what felt like hours. Fredric seemed completely captivated by it, even though he had seemed scornful of archery when we had first met. Finally, he agreed that this weapon should be showed to Nasuada. This was exactly what I had hoped for.

When the two of us reached the red pavilion, the entrance was blocked by an assortment of guards. Men and dwarves stood stony faced in front of the flap with their weapons drawn. They were dwarfed, however, by several huge…creatures. They reminded me of the Gamorreans from Star Wars, only bigger and meaner-looking. I quickly closed my mouth and composed myself, shocked though I was at their appearance.

Fredric noticed my shock. "Aye, I was surprised too when Nasuada declared her guard was to include Urgals. I don't approve of them myself, but they are splendid in battle, splendid indeed…" So, these monstrosities were called Urgals.

"They don't seem like they'll let us through," I said, my euphoria slowly fading into nervousness. "Is she busy with something?"

Fredric conferred tapped a boy who was passing on the shoulder. "Any idea what Lady Nasuada is doing?"

"She's meeting with Fadawar of the Wandering Tribes," the boy replied quickly. "I heard from a servant that it had come down to a trial of the Long Knives."

Fredric cursed. "I don't know much about the Tribes, but the Long Knives is the worst…the very worst…"

"What is it," I pressed him. I was glad for something to distract me from the Urgals. "Is it some sort of ritual?"

He grimaced. "When they have conflicts over leadership, they settle them with the Long Knives. Which ever one withstands the most pain is worthy of the role of leader."

I got it. They were holding a cutting convention in there. Nasuada was clearly tougher than she looked if she was willing to chop herself up just to stay in power.

Power sometimes frightens, I thought. But the lack of it frightens more.

It was several hours before the Trial of the Long Knives was over. I could yell because Nasuada's guard (whom Fredric told me were called the Nighthawks) cleared a path and several people exited the tent. One of them had his forearms bound in tough strips of cloth, which had already acquired a saturation of blood. I couldn't believe how barbaric the practice seemed.

The Nighthawks finally let us through. Inside the red pavilion, Nasuada sat in a chair, conversing with a man who I assumed was also a leader, for he wore a crown upon his head. They appeared to be having an argument, but Nasuada was so weak that she could only murmur responses. We approached her as the other man walked away, anger etched in his face.

As we neared her chair, a man who was unmistakably a soldier leaned closer to her chair and muttered, "That was badly handled, my Lady."

As a maid adjusted her bandages, she said, "I know. I'll mend his broken pride tomorrow."

"My Lady," said Fredric excitedly. "William has invented a new weapon for us! It is utterly remarkable!"

"New...weapon?" Nasuada croaked groggily.

The soldier moved between us. "Lady Nasuada needs rest! Whatever you had to say can wait for tomorrow, I'm sure."

"But...but...oh well, I suppose..." Fredric sighed, his voice laden with disappointment. As we left the pavilion, he glanced at the sky and said, "It will be dark soon. I can assign you a tent if no one has yet."

"Yes, I need one."

"I see. On the south perimeter are some empty ones. Ask a sentinel and he'll point you to the dining area in the morning," Fredric told me. He clapped me on the back. "This new crossbow is simply marvelous! I know Nasuada will be pleased."

She better be, I thought. I left Fredric and made my way through the camp in the direction he had pointed me. Soon enough I came to a patch of empty tents on the outskirts of the camp. I exchanged a few words with one of the men patrolling and ducked into a tent, where I found a pile of blankets and a chest with some candles and some pieces of flint and steel. These people hadn't even invented matches. I rolled myself up in the blankets, which were surprisingly fluffy and comfortable, and lay there, watching the sky slowly darken.

I fell asleep about an hour later, my mind having finally run out of things to think about. I was harshly awakened when a patrolling sentinel tripped and promptly started swearing his head off. I took advantage of it to set my watch and phone clock to midnight. Then I returned to dreamland...the one in my head, that is.


	6. Quarrels, in More Ways Than One

Author's Note: Well, I have to say that education is a grueling and tiring...what's that you say? Stop whining and get on with the story? Ok, fine, but the point I want to make is that chapters will be coming LESS FREQUENTLY. You have been warned. As always, if you spot inconsistencies please let me know in a review. I would also like to thank all my faithful followers.

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**Quarrels, in More Ways Than One**

The next day I rose quickly. As usual, I had the bitter taste in my mouth that reminded me that I had not brushed my teeth last night. As soon as I got my hands on the right ingredients, I was going to make some toothpaste. I smoothed the wrinkles out of my grimy clothes and stepped out of the tent.

The bustle of daily life enveloped me. As I wound my way around the tents, I passed women with laundry, children with toys, and, of course, men with weapons. This place was like a mobile town.

I met Fredric by Nasuada's pavilion. He was cradling the crossbow I had modified like a newborn child. When he saw me, he waved and ducked under the flap. I followed him in.

Nasuada had recovered swiftly from her ordeal the day before. Her bandages were clean and free of blood, much to my relief. As usual, the soldier was standing slightly behind her. I assumed he was her personal bodyguard.

"Ah, Fredric. This is the new weapon you tried to show me yesterday?" She smiled. "I wasn't really up to looking at it then."

"But you are now," Beamed Fredric. He lifted up the crossbow. "William invented some sort of gadget so that the bow can shoot one arrow after another!"

Nasuada raised her eyebrows. "Without reloading?"

"Yes! Quite remarkable, eh?" Fredric said, shooting me a glowing look.

"Well, that certainly is impressive. I have no doubt it will be very helpful to the war effort." Nasuada said, giving me an appraising glance.

"Actually," I said, deciding it was time for my plan to be revived, "If I had the resources, I could easily make you more weapons. My knowledge on the subject is quite…extensive."

Naduada gave me another appraising glance. "I will have your device tested. If it works, then we'll see."

"But my Lady," said Fredric. "I already did test it. It was amazing! Worked perfectly! With every archer able to shoot arrows four times as fast, think of the advantages!" He seemed delighted by the idea of four times as many dead people. I wondered if Fredric had been at his job to long.

Nasuada too seemed to be imagining the possibilities. "Yes...four times…" She seemed pleased by the thought. "How soon can you make more of these attachments for our crossbows?"

"As soon as you give me some men I can show what to do." It was clear what I was asking for. Men, resources...she would be promoting me big time.

It was several minutes before she came to a decision. "All right. You will have twenty men whom you will instruct on how to make the improved bow. You will have as many materials as we can spare." She hesitated, then said, "I will be placing a lot of faith in you, Wyatt, so I expect you to yield results."

I promised I would.

"Very well. The men I have chosen will be waiting for you near the the archery range in an hour. Give my scribe a list of the materials you used and I will see they are brought to you. Anything else?"

"No, my Lady," I said happily, giving her a bow. I retrieved the prototype bow from Fredric, who didn't look too happy to lose it, and decided I would kill some time waiting for my men to meet me at the range.

I had a good mental map of the camp by now, and I was on my way to the archery range when I met two rather strange people who drew my attention.

One was a small girl, with startling violet eyes and a strange birthmark on her brow-though it was no birthmark I'd ever seen before. It was a shimmering sort of silver. It looked like she'd colored herself with a metallic Sharpie. She was listening to a short woman with curly brown hair, who looked to be in her mid-thirties. The woman was talking animatedly, gesturing with her arms. In one hand she held a bag of some sort of ground plant and in the other she held a short wooden rod, like a magic wand from Harry Potter. As I walked passed them, the woman made a wide sweeping gesture and hit me between the shoulders with the wooden rod.

A surge of electricity coursed through my body, seizing my muscles until I collapsed on the ground. I had never been Tased, but I imagined it would be something like this. Yes, it was painful.

"Oh dear! I'm so sorry!" cried the short woman. She tossed the rod to the ground, stooped down, and pulled me to my feet with surprising ease. "I was too careless...my fault, sorry…"

I swayed unsteadily. "What...was that?"

She shrugged. "It's a common and boring artifact, nothing special. Oh, dear...Elva, are you alright?" The young girl beside her was also looking queasy.

"Elva's a bit sensitive to other people's' distress," she explained airily. "I think your obvious panic was disconcerting to her."

I gestured the rod, which lay on the ground where the woman had dropped it. Even in my weakened state, I felt a gut feeling that a magic wand that could incapacitate someone could prove extremely useful.

"What you trade for that?" I asked. Maybe I could sell her a crossbow.

A thoughtful expression crossed her face. "Well now, I was rather regretting bringing with me in the first place. It's really been a waste of space. And I suppose I owe you one because I shocked you. Tell you what: you can have it."

I stooped to pick it up. "Oh no!" She cried. I straightened up, alarmed. "Pick up the other side. That's the dangerous end you were reaching for." She explained. I noticed that the young girl was once again swaying on her feet. I felt mildly annoyed. She hadn't been shocked, so why was she acting all disoriented?

I picked up the rod and carefully slipped it into my pocket. It was sort of wand shaped, the dangerous end being slightly thinner. At least I would not accidently shock my self.

"How do use it?" I asked.

"You have to give whatever you want a sharp rap. Like what I did to you," She said. "A soft little tap won't do it."

I thanked her and asked her name. "Angela," she replied. "I'm a herbalist by occupation, although I'm useful to the Varden for...my other talents. ." As she was not telling, I decided that I would not be asking. Maybe she was ninja assassin or something.

"And you?" I asked, inclining my head to the girl, who met my eyes without hesitation.

"Elva," she said simply. Apparently none of these people had last names. "And you?" she said. She looked at me with her head tilted to one side, and a curious expression playing around her face, like she did not know what to make of me, the same way I did not know what to make of her.

"William," I said. Now that I knew that no one here had last names, I was curious what Nasuada had thought of me when I gave two. Then another, more disturbing thing ran through my mind: she said "Mr.", as though she knew what to do when people like me came her way. It was a hopeful sign.

Elva was still eyeing me, with a mixture of curiosity, suspicion, and wonder.

"Tell me, William, are you satisfied with your life?" she asked, catching me off guard. For a child that looked to be between six and seven, she was fluent and did not seem to have the least amount of trouble with words.

"I am. Or I was," I said, casting a wary eye over her. Either she could read me very easily, or I was just obvious with my thoughts.

Elva nodded in agreement with my words. "Yes, only recently have you become perturbed, worried, and slightly scared. Yet I think that your-"

"Elva!" interrupted Angela, a stern look on her face. "What have I told you about this?" To me, she said, "As you can see, she's rather adept at reading faces and emotions." Adept? This tiny girl was a master. "Well, I suppose you had best be on your way, William."

I took the hint. I thanked her again for the mysterious Taser-stick and was on my way. However, had only gone a hundred feet farther when someone cried, "Make space! Eragon Shadeslayer and Saphira Brightscales are to land! Make space!"

Instantly, a wide space was cleared, A crowd gathered in a wide circle, eager and excited looks on their faces. I made my way to the front. Eragon Shadeslayer? Saphira Brightscales? Land? What was happening? How could these people have helicopters but not matches? Someone shouted and pointed up into the sky. There were more shouts and then cheers and whistles. I looked up and felt my mouth fall open.

A gigantic bird was circling the camp, slowly spiraling down to the wide landing spot. As it got closer, I could see it was bright blue, and where the sun struck it, it sparkled like glass. It was beautiful and terrifying, mixture of natural and unnatural. After it was only a hundred feet overhead, I realized what it really was, and my heart seemed to stop.

It was a dragon. A real, flesh and blood dragon. It was an awesome sight, enough to make my blood run cold. It was a moment I would remember for the rest of my life. The dragon shone like a polished jewel, the reflected sunlight dazzling to my eyes.

Off the my right, I saw Nasuada walk between two tents and stare intently at the descending dragon. The herbalist Angela and the small girl, Elva, appeared behind her and whispered something in her ear. Nasuada paled slightly under her dark skin, and then she whispered an order to the ever present soldier behind her, who repeated the command to several others. Within a minute, the crowd, with myself included, was being pushed back, and ordered back to our tents.

I was not about to just walk away from a dragon, and it seemed that many others shared my feelings. The soldiers soon produced batons, or a wooden equivalent, and began to forcefully push us back. Not wanting to be bashed on the head (the memory was still too recent to ignore) I retreated back out of the clearing and found a point between some large tents where I could watch events unfold.

A few minutes went by before the dragon landed. When it did, it hit the ground on four thick legs, and to feel the earth tremble was to shudder in awe. No creature on Earth could come close to the dragon, the way it flew through the air, sharp wings cutting through the sky, like dual razor blades. I would rather be tied to an overheating proton defraculator than face that beast by myself.

Two people dismounted the dragon. One was a man in his early twenties or so, and the other a woman who looked to be around the same age. They met with Nasuada, and the two women exchanged a few words. Then the dragon moved forward and put its head squarely in front of Nasuada.

They stared into each other's eyes, and then Nasuada said something. After a few seconds, she said something else, and I experienced the same feeling I'd had back in her pavilion, like my mind was being explored by a consciousness not my own. I hadn't known it was that at the time, but as I heard the dragon's voice echo in my mind, I was sure that was what was happening.

_Eragon_, said the dragon, _decided to remain in the Empire._ From its voice I could tell it was a female. Geez, if this was a female dragon, how big were the males?

I was actually rather proud of myself for handling everything so well. Middle ages, knights, swords, dragons, especially the dragons. I see a twenty ton flying beast drop out of the sky and my first thoughts are, what size are the males?

They were talking again. I slowly edged around a tent until I was within hearing distance.

". . . how could you allow him to stay?" she asked.

Small tongues of fire rippled in Saphira's nostrils as she snorted. _Eragon made his own choice. I could not stop him. He insists upon doing what he thinks is right, no matter the consequences for him or the rest of Alagaësia. . . . I could shake him like a hatchling, but I'm proud of him. Fear not; he can take care of himself. So far, no misfortune has befallen him. I would know if he was hurt._

A tall woman dressed in black spoke: "And why did he make this choice, Saphira?"

I focused on the woman and felt my cheeks grow warm. She was beautiful, more beautiful than a fashion model (and being a billionaire, I knew my way around them, believe me). Amazing green eyes and dark hair presented a stunning combination. I looked closer and saw that her ears were pointed at the ends; not by much, but enough to be noticeable.

An elf.

It made sense: she was hot, she had pointed ears, and she was hot. What else could she be? I wondered what I would say if we were ever introduced. _Search my mind anytime, babe._ Hmm...she might whack me into next week if I said that...

_It would be faster for me to show you rather than explain with words. May I?_, the dragon, Saphira, said.

I could feel her sending memories and thoughts to Nasuada. It felt bizarre, and I still wasn't used to it, but I could tell that this ability to hear and communicate with thoughts would be very useful.

They continued to talk, but I let my mind wander. Elves, dwarves, and dragons...of course, I still had yet to see Gandalf, but the rest of my criteria for a fantasy world had been filled out. My dream of introducing high-end technology into this world still stood. I could tell that Nasuada would love having Kevlar and cannons, and I was confident that some deals with the dwarves would get me the resources I needed to make gunpowder. A quick word with a blacksmith and I would have the parts for a gun, and then…

"OI! YOU!" one of the soldiers screamed in my ear. "Get away! Get going, now!" I was shoved forward. Nasuada and the others looked up in surprise. The elf was in the middle of tying her boots. She looked up at me with a lace between her teeth. As our eyes met, a shudder ran through my body. Did I mention that she was hot? In that split-second, the old billionaire-swagg returned, and I succumbed to a sudden urge. I winked at her.

Her slanted eyes widened, and a look of mingled shock and indignation crossed her face. Before she could speak, Nasuada cut in.

"William!" she cried. "Why are you eavesdropping on us?!"

I sighed, and tried to arrange my face so as to look remorseful. "I've never seen a dragon before," I said truthfully, "and I wasn't just going to walk away from one now." I decided not to mention the whole eavesdropping thing.

The dragon in question suddenly got right in my face. She stuck her blue head in front of mine and stared at me with a piercing glare.

_Who are you_? she demanded.

I was quaking on the inside, but if I wasn't able to disguise my emotions I would never have succeeded so spectacularly. So I grinned, raised an eyebrow and said, "Would you ever turn down an opportunity to see someone so fierce and amazing?" to a twenty-ton fire-breathing carnivore.

The flattery worked. She blinked and drew her head back a little. _You have a point, human,_ she sniffed. Nasuada still looked mad, but she pulled a poker face equal to my own and said, "Well, William, I can't think of a better way to prove you only want the best for the Varden than to accompany Arya and assure Eragon's safe return."

We both shouted, "What?!" at the same time. "My Lady," the elf, Arya, said angrily, "I will be slowed down by this man. I will only be able to cover half the distance I could alone. I need to be fast!"

"And I am needed here!" I protested. I would be happy to prove myself to the Varden, just after I had a hot bath and another session of Angry Bird therapy. "My weapons need to be built pronto-I mean soon! Now! Not-"

"I've reached my decision," said Nasuada, authority etched in every word. "You leave when Arya is ready. After you return you will have my full trust and faith, and you will build the weapons."

I could tell there would be no arguing with her. I turned glumly to Arya, who had finished lacing up her boots and was bouncing on the balls of her feet. "When do we go?"

She gave me a look of disdain. "At once. How far can you run in a day?"

I thought quickly. I made a habit of going to the gym daily. My body was lean and fairly muscular; not much to look at but enough to get the job done. Up until now that job had been sitting at a desk, counting my money and toying with my picture of a polar bear licking my hand. Now that job was a heck of alot more serious.

"Thirty, forty miles at most, why?"

"Forty miles it is," she said casually. "Keep up." And with that, she ran off. I gave Nasuada an incredulous look, before sprinting after the elf.


	7. An Introduction to Eragon

Author's Note: I'm glad I was able to hammer out this chapter in less than a week. I'm really warming to this story so I hope to have more chapters very soon. Another thanks to my loyal followers and a thank you in advance for reviewing!

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**An Introduction to Eragon**

_"You do realize its potential."_

_"I'm no murderer."_

_"We are at peace, Mr. Wyatt. It will never be used."_

_"Give me a break. Something so powerful should never be created or even considered."_

_"This is in the interest of national security!"_

_"You just said we're at peace!"_

_"It's a deterrent. With such a powerful weapon, none would dare attack us."_

_"Without me, you can never weaponize it. And I don't ever intend to, Vanessa."_

_"And you call yourself a patriot, William."_

_"I invented the defraculator to save the world, not destroy it!"_

_"I tell you, it will never be used!"_

_"I know you military types too well. The way you talk about it, I can tell you're dying to try it. What do you call it? The 'clean nuke?' Well forget it. Forget it!"_

Tired. Sweaty. Hot. Tired. Sweaty. Hot. The same thoughts buzzed around in my head as I panted after Arya. It had only been about four hours, assuming my watch was still accurate, but I was whipped. The elf, on the other hand, seemed like she could go on forever. We had gone about twenty miles and she wasn't even sweating. Maybe elves don't sweat, I thought.

Our travel had been largely uneventful. My jacket was tied around my waist and my iPhone was in my hand. The EnerPlex case charged the phone as long as I left the solar panel uncovered, and I was pleased at how fast it worked. I had modified it myself, of course, adding a panel of my own design. Now I was reaping my reward. I had considered playing some music to break the monotony, but being unsure how Arya would react, I decided against it.

"Stop!" Arya whispered urgently. I was grateful for the excuse, and slowed to a walk. Arya pointed farther up the dirt road we'd been traveling on, and I saw several large men herding a small group of oxen on the side of the road. I looked quickly at Arya.

"What do we do?" I asked, sliding my iPhone into my pocket and grasping my pepper spray bottle. My other hand reached for the Taser-stick (I called it the t-rod), which I had tucked into the waistband of my jeans. Arya didn't reply, but reached up to her ear and murmured something I couldn't hear. Suddenly, the pointed tip of her ear smoothed until it was rounded like a human's. She then repeated the process on the other ear, and then did the same to her eyes, making them round, rather than the cat-like slant they normally had. I gaped at her.

"How did you do that?" I asked in disbelief.

"Magic," she said, looking at me oddly. "How else?"

"You can do magic?" I gasped. No way! This was too cool! My exhaustion forgotten, I barraged her with questions. "How do you do it? Can only elves do it? How could I-"

"Quiet!" she gestured at the ox herders, who were only a couple hundred feet away. "I suppose I can give you a brief explanation, but later!"

I nodded, though I was bursting with excitement. I had heard so much talk from everyone about magic, but I had not really believed it was real until now. I contained my questions and adopted a serious expression for the benefit of the ox herders, who were very close.

As we passed, the three large men looked up from their charges to survey Arya and me. I thought we were in the clear, but then one of them said loudly,

"Well, what have we here? A woman who dresses in trousers? Not something you see everyday, nor is it something you should." The two other men looked up and looked more closely at Arya and me. They nodded agreement.

The man who had spoken took a step forward. Arya tensed, and I could tell she was ready for a fight.

"Dressing like that is asking for trouble, missy. And we would-"

"Hate to see her in distress, wouldn't you?" I interrupted loudly. The man glared at me.

"Watch your mouth, sonny." Sonny? What was I, ten? I took a step toward him, and covertly slid the t-stick from my pants.

"Looks like you need a lesson, boy!" the man growled. I could smell some sort of alcohol on his breath, and knew at once a fight was unavoidable.

He swung at me, but I was too fast. I ducked under his arm and rapped him smartly on the forehead with the rod. He made a horrible gagging sound and collapsed on the ground. I felt a twinge of sympathy, knowing what that stick felt like, but then his two mates started towards me, looking outraged, but-

"Slytha!" cried Arya, her hand outstretched to the men. The air seemed to vibrate around us, before the men gave small sighs and collapsed on the ground, fast asleep.

I looked at Arya. "Magic?" She nodded. So it was words that controlled it. And "slytha" either meant "sleep" or "pass out." I made a mental note to question Arya more when we stopped for the night, which I judged to be another four or five hours away. I hoped the mens' oxen wouldn't wander too far.

It took a long time for us to reach Eastcroft, where Arya said she could hear Eragon through the ground. She knelt down and pressed one of her ears against the hard earth and listened for a few minutes. Then she promptly stood and proclaimed Eragon was near. I wasn't quite sure what she how she had figured it out, but after seeing her knock out three guys just by talking, I was less than eager to ask what she meant.

When we came to Eastcroft, the sun was almost down. Arya said that Eragon was very close, so I suggested that we meet him inside the village. She considered for a moment, then agreed.

"Eragon would meet us outside the village," she explained, "but chances are he's with other travelers and it would look strange indeed if he refused to enter the village."

We came to the entrance to Eastcroft. Arya and I walked through a large hole in the wall, where enormous doors stood ready to close once the sun came down. We had taken only a few steps down the dirt road that lead to what looked to be a town square when Arya placed a hand on my chest and pointed to a watchman with a lantern, who was approaching from a narrow alleyway.

"Stay here and answer any questions he has," she whispered urgently.

"Where are you going?" I asked nervously, one eye on the sentinel, the other on her hand.

"I'm going to find a dress, like those that your women wear," she said, a hint of distaste flashing in her eyes. "It will take naught but a few minutes."

"I'll hold you to that," I muttered as she bounded off into the gathering darkness. I leaned against the wall of a building and waited, expecting the watchman to approach.

Another couple of minutes trickled by. When the watchman stepped out onto the street, he saw me immediately. Placing a hand on the pommel of a sword sheathed at his belt, he called, "You there! You've not been to Eastcroft before! What be your name and business here?"

_William!_ Arya's voice sounded suddenly in my head. _Tell him you're visiting family, and will be here only a night or two. I'm on my way back now._ I felt her mind recede from mine, and I turned my attention back to the guard, who was eyeing me suspiciously.

"I'm, um, visiting my family," I stammered nervously, glancing at his sword, calculating the time it would take me to draw my weapons. "I'll, uh, only be here a few year-er-days."

He glared at me. "And how do I know that you're telling the truth?"

"Because I'm his sister," said Arya, appearing at my side. She was now wearing a dark green dress, which I couldn't help but notice fitted her perfectly. In her arms was a mass of dark fabric. "He'll be here a few nights."

Her confidence seemed enough to reassure him. "Alright," he muttered gruffly. "But I'll have you know we tolerate neither thievery nor lechery in-"

"Yes, we know the law in these parts, thank you," said Arya quickly, and practically dragged me away. Once we had put several houses between us and the watchman, she turned to me and shoved a bundle into my arms. I held it up and it unrolled to reveal a long black cloak with a hood. I looked at it and saw it contained several large pockets, perfect for carrying my weapons and anything else.

"Thanks," I said happily to Arya, knotting the cloak around my neck. I felt like I had just walked out of Assassin's Creed. "It fits perfectly!"

"Just another advantage of magic," she smiled, donning her own cloak. I grinned back, delighted to find that all my stuff sat perfectly in the cloak's inside pockets, where I could pull out anything without it being seen.

I followed Arya into a small two-story building. I could tell at once it was a tavern. Men and women were shouting, laughing, and drinking, while minstrels sang in the background. Arya pulled a small bag out and from within it, a coin purse appeared.

"Get a table," she said to me. "I'll rent a room."

I sat down at a rickety old table pushed against the wall. After another minute, Arya slid into the booth opposite me, her hood pulled over her head. She pushed a small tankard into my hands and said, "I don't know how long we must wait for Eragon, and you look tired enough to fall asleep here and now."

I nodded gratefully and took a sip, discovering that it was some sort of mead. Arya looked fit and refreshed, as though she hadn't spent the day sprinting all over Alagaësia. I offered her some of the brew but she shook her head and continued to glance around the room.

"Eragon won't know you are even if he sees you," I pointed out, and leaned across the table to pull down her hood. Lightning fast, her hand shot out and grabbed my wrist. Her round eyes narrowed and she looked at me coldly. Then she released my arm and pulled her hood down herself.

Slightly shaken, I put both my hands around my tankard and and focused on my drink. I had forgotten that I was among warriors, people fought and died for causes they couldn't understand. Arya was no human, not by a long shot. She was far better for this sort of thing. If not for my brains, I would probably have gotten myself killed when I first arrived here.

"Why did Nasuada send me with you?" I asked despairingly. "I'm not a fighter. I'm useful to the Varden when I'm _with_ the Varden."

She looked at me and raised her eyebrows. "I thought it was obvious why she sent you away. She's attracted to you, and worried that you will distract her from her duties."

"What?" I blinked. "But...but…"

"Think about it," Arya said. "You're tall, muscular, well spoken, and the day you arrive you make a new weapon that Fredric loves like a firstborn son. Add this to your smile and charming demeanor, and I'm sure I'd feel for you if I was a human."

Her explanation stunned me. I'd feel for you if I was a human. But she wasn't a human, and clearly she didn't "feel for me." Still, the implications of what she said were unsettling. If it was true, it meant I had a high position in the Varden, assuming I took advantage of Nasuada's feelings, something I was hesitant to to. Bloody politics. You couldn't escape them even on a different planet.

Suddenly Arya stiffened. "Eragon," she murmured. I looked up as a man approached our table. Eragon.

Up close, the person I'd heard so much about, who was spoken of with such reverence, was just a teenager. A tall, confident, strong, good-looking teenager, but still a teenager nonetheless.

Keeping his gaze fixed upon the crowd, Eragon slipped behind the table and sat next to Arya. "What are you doing here?" he asked, barely moving his lips.

"Searching for you."

Surprised, he glanced at her, and she raised a curved eyebrow. He looked back at the throng of people and, pretending to smile, asked, "Are you alone?"

"No," muttered Arya. "Nasuada saw fit to provide me an escort."

Eragon looked around and saw me for the first time. "Who are you?" he asked, looking puzzled.  
"William Wyatt," I muttered back. "So you're Eragon?"

"Yes."

"And Saphira is your dragon?"

"We are bonded. It is wrong to speak as though I own her."

"But...you ride her? I saw she had a saddle."

"Yes," he said, and shot an irritated look at Arya, as if to say, you brought along the fan club? It annoyed me; I was only gathering information. I had been hoping to ask more about magic, but after seeing his reaction to a few questions about dragons, I decided that it would be pointless to, in his mind, irritate him further.

"Did you rent a bed for the night?" asked Arya.

"No."

"Good. I already have a room." She stood and looked down at me. "Finish your drink." The message was clear: the grown-ups need to talk. She put a few more coins on the table and said, "Buy yourself some dinner."

They disappeared up a set on stairs in the corner of the room, and I let out a sigh and took another gulp of mead. I needed some time to think.

I was no murderer, but the Varden was clearly fighting to the death with the Empire. I had happily given them a weapon with four times its former killing power without batting an eyelid. Was I still no murderer? I felt like Wernher von Braun, who, when the first V-2 rocket hit London, remarked to his colleagues, "The rocket worked perfectly except for landing on the wrong planet."

_That damn green light_, I thought, _put me on the wrong planet._

When I quietly entered into the room ten minutes later, my stomach happily digesting the meat pie I'd bought, I saw Eragon on the floor and Arya lying on the bed, both of them asleep. They clearly had a strong bond, one that I was jealous of. _Well_, I thought, _I'm here to stay, so I may as well get used to things_. I lay on the floor a long time before I finally fell asleep.


	8. The Harsh Reality

Well, I just want to give you a heads up that I won't be following the plot like this for muck longer. William is here for a reason, which I aim to show you. As always, review and tell me if you see any typos; those buggers are hard to catch! Enjoy!

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**The Harsh Reality **

_"So what's your threat this time, Vanessa?"_

_ "Whatever it takes, William. Don't you care for your country at all?"_

_ "Okay, just stop. Don't play that stupid 'patriotism' thing with me. I saved the world from global warming and you want me to give you a weapon that could destroy it?"_

_ "William. How much can I stress that it will not be used?"_

_ "Never enough to convince me of it."_

_ "You know, Einstein worked with the military. He helped develop the nuclear bomb."_

_ "Thank you for the history lesson, Professor Crane."_

_ "You could at least show some respect, William."_

_ "I'm sort of a billionaire, Vanessa."_

_"And you have the bloated ego to prove it. We _will_ continue this discussion another time. I don't joke when I make threats."_

"Awake, William," Arya whispered urgently in my ear. "We must slip out while the sun has yet to rise."

I groaned and shook off my dream of two cats fighting over a TV remote. As I sat up, I noticed Eragon studying my shirt while tying up a small bag of supplies.

"What does it mean?" he asked. I looked down. My shirt was inspired by _1984_. "WAR IS PEACE. FREEDOM IS SLAVERY. IGNORANCE IS STRENGTH," it said.

"It's just a reference to a book I read once," I said. Eragon looked like he wanted more details, but I felt a malicious pleasure in denying him information as he had done the night before.

I hastily pulled my cloak back one and knotted it around my throat, feeling a prick of satisfaction as my elbows rubbed against my few items stored in the pockets wherein.

"Come on, now," urged Arya. She had fried open the rusty window and was preparing to jump out of it.

"Hold on!" I cried. "Are you nuts? I mean, insane?"

"A twelve-foot drop is nothing for one of our abilities," said Arya coldly. Why did she have such contempt for me? Did I have to prove myself in some way before I'd receive some respect?

"Arya will catch you," Eragon said quickly, diffusing the glacial atmosphere. "I'll follow."

Arya nodded her approval of this plan, tightened her dress around her legs, and promptly jumped out the window. I climbed up onto the sill and looked down to the street, far below. Arya looked up at me and said, "Go on, I'll catch you."

_Bloody elves,_ I thought, and jumped. The wind whistled past my ears for only a split-second before I felt myself slow down. Arya had lept up, caught me in midair , and slowed my fall to a crawl. I was reminded again that she was superhuman...or not even human at all.

I hit the ground with a soft thump. Eragon landed smoothly beside me. I shivered in the cool morning air and said, "Is it necessary to leave so early in the day?"

"Yes," said Arya shortly. "Now follow me."

We wound our way through the narrow streets until we came to the high walls surrounding the village. Arya and Eragon grabbed my legs and with a combine effort, propelled me over the wall. I landed on the narrow walkway on the top and almost toppled back over. I knelt down to steady myself. Arya and Eragon joined me a few minutes later. This time Eragon caught me roughly to break my fall, and Arya dropped silently to the ground next to me. We ran from Eastcroft in the darkness.

When we had put some distance between us and the town, Eragon stopped by a charred stump. Kneeling, Arya scooped several handfuls of dirt from the ground in front of her. "Adurna rïsa," she said. With a faint trickle, water welled out of the surrounding soil and poured into the hole she had dug. Arya waited until the water filled the cavity and then said, "Letta," and the flow ceased. I wached her closely, eager to observe magic in action.

She said more words, and Nasuada's face appeared upon the surface of the still water. I almost gasped. These people had magic Skype! Arya greeted her. "My Lady," Eragon said, and bowed. I popped in between them and inclined my head respectfully.

"Eragon," Nasuada said. She appeared tired, hollow-cheeked, as if she had suffered a long illness. A lock snapped free of her bun and coiled itself into a tight knot at her hairline. Eragon glimpsed a row of bulky bandages on her arm as she slid a hand over her head, pressing the rebellious hair flat. "You are safe, thank Gokukara. We were so worried."_ Who's Gokukara?_

"I'm sorry I upset you, but I had my reasons."

"You must explain them to me when you arrive."

"As you wish," he said. "How were you hurt? Did someone attack you? Why haven't any of Du Vrangr Gata healed you?" _Du Vrangr Gata?_

"I ordered them to leave me alone. And that I will explain when you arrive." Thoroughly puzzled, Eragon nodded and swallowed his questions. To Arya, Nasuada said, "I'm impressed; you found him. I wasn't sure you could."

"Fortune smiled upon me."

"Perhaps, but I tend to believe your skill was as important as Fortune's generosity. How long until you rejoin us?"

"Two, three days, unless we encounter unforeseen difficulties."

"Good. I will expect you then. From now on, I want you to contact me at least once before noon and once before nightfall. If I fail to hear from you, I'll assume you've been captured, and I'll send Saphira with a rescue force."

"We may not always have the privacy we need to work magic."

"Find a way to get it. I need to know where you two are and whether you're safe."

Arya considered for a moment and then said, "If I can, I will do as you ask, but not if it puts Eragon in danger."

"Agreed."

Taking advantage of the ensuing pause in the conversation, Eragon said, "Nasuada, is Saphira near at hand? I would like to talk to her. . . . We haven't spoken since Helgrind."

"She left an hour ago to scout our perimeter. Can you maintain this spell while I find out if she has returned?"

"Go," said Arya.

A single step carried Nasuada out of their field of view, leaving behind a static image of the table and chairs inside her red pavilion. Eragon sighed and leaned against the charred stump.

There came the sound of breaking wood, and then a field of sparkling blue scales covered the pool as Saphira forced herself into the pavilion. It was hard for me to tell what part of her he saw, it was such a small part. She turned and twisted, trying to find a position from which she could comfortably view the the screen Nasuada was using to record her end of the conversation. From the alarming noises that originated behind Saphira, I guessed she was crushing most of the furniture. At last she settled in place, brought her head close to the mirror—so that one large sapphire eye occupied the entire pool—and peered out at us.

They looked at each other for a full minute, neither of them moving. It surprised Eragon looked relieved to see her. I waved at Saphira from behind him. Arya frowned at me.

"I missed you," Eragon whispered whispered to Saphira.

She blinked once.

"Nasuada, are you still there?"

The muffled answer floated toward him from somewhere to the right of Saphira: "Yes, barely."

"Would you be so kind as to relay Saphira's comments to me?"

"I'm more than happy to, but at the moment, I'm caught between a wing and a pole, and there's no path free, so far as I can tell. You may have difficulty hearing me. If you're willing to bear with me, though, I'll give it a try."

"Please do."

Nasuada was quiet for several heartbeats, and then in a tone so like Saphira's that Eragon almost laughed, she said, "You are well?"

"I'm healthy as an ox. And you?"

"To compare myself with a bovine would be both ridiculous and insulting, but I'm as fit as ever, if that is what you are asking. I'm pleased Arya is with you. It's good for you to have someone sensible around to watch your back. William too, I sense to be a good man to be with." My face reddened slightly with the praise.

"I agree. Help is always welcome when you're in danger." Eragon said, shooting me a brief look, like, _you're not the help I meant. _He, Arya and Saphira chatted about other, inconsequential happenings and then bade each other farewell.

After Eragon and Arya took their leave of Nasuada, Arya terminated her spell and stood. With the back of her hand, she knocked the dirt from her dress.

While she did, Eragon fidgeted, looking impatient.

"Let us be off," he said, already moving.

And off we went.

Our travel was uneventful, quite like the journey with Arya, although this time we did not run so fast. I finally got my phone fully charged, and thought, _to hell with it._

_ "There's a fire, starting in my heart…" _

They both whirled around in an instant, swords drawn.

"Who's that?" demanded Eragon, looking around for the source of the noise.

"Is that you, William?" asked Arya sharply.

"Yeah," I mumbled, turning off the song. Eragon stared at the phone in my hand.

"How did you summon music?" he asked. "That was not your voice." It was true; I didn't sound like Adele at all. What a deduction.

"Er, I sort of...have it stored in this device," I offered lamely, holding up the phone. I pressed the play button and again Adele's voice sounded out before I paused it again. "I can make it play on demand, whenever I want."

"How is this possible?" murmured Arya. "I sense no magic. This is not possible," she said, shaking her head.

I looked wildly around for a distraction to stall them before they decided to burn me alive for witchcraft. "Hey look! Men ahead of us!"

Arya shaded her eyes and peered ahead at the plume of dust on the road.

"Soldiers," she whispered. "Perhaps ten minutes away."

Eragon grabbed some dust off the ground and tossed it into the air, giving us all a fine coating and giving us a dirty and wretched look. The desire for a shower returned to me with a vengeance. Arya tugged her dress over her trousers and Eragon pulled a ring off his finger and tucked it in his pack. I nervously pulled on my cloak and tightened my hands around my weapons.

I could feel the rumble of approaching hoofbeats and hear the cries of the men driving their steeds. We moved off the road. The dirt in the air was so thick, I had to close my eyes. A moment later, someone in the swirling blizzard of dust shouted, "Company, halt!" A chorus of Whoas, Steady theres, and Hey there, Nells rang out as the men coaxed their mounts to form a circle around us. Before the soldiers completed their maneuver and the air cleared, I saw Eragon paw the ground for a large pebble, then stand back up.

"Be still!" hissed Arya.

I went through the story Arya and Eragon had concocted to explain our presence so close to the Varden. I really hoped these soldiers would buy, it, because I wasn't in the mood to get stabbed in the face. The lead man, who had a mustache that rivaled a German WWI general, gestured to several others, who dismounted and hit Eragon hard with the butts of their spears. I started to withdraw my t-stick, but Arya grabbed my arm and shook her head.

The armor in Eragon's pack jangled as he fell.

"Oho!" cried the lead man triumphantly. "Armor, eh? Hoping to join the Varden, hmm?"

"Wrong," said Eragon calmly. "I joined a long time ago."

We all moved simultaneously. Eragon grabbed the spear out of the hands of the soldier who had hit him and whacked him around the head with it. I turned and sprayed the nearest few horses with my Mace. They reared and threw off their riders, who hit the ground hard and immediately scrambled to grab their weapons.

"Too slow!" I said gleefully as I danced among them, spraying them each with the pepper spray. I looked up from the three I had incapacitated, expecting to see Eragon and Arya punching the rest of them unconscious.

Instead, I saw Eragon punch a man as hard as he could in the chest. The soldier's chest seemed to explode in a mist of blood as he slumped to the ground, dead. I looked around. The last of the riders fell off his horse, his neck at an odd angle. Arya calmly slipped off the horse and, upon hearing him groan, kicked him hard in the neck.

"What are you guys doing!" I screamed. "You killed them!"

"Yes," said Arya. She drew her sword, stepped past me, and calmly killed the soldiers who were writhing on the ground. I turned away, only to look upon the man Eragon had punched. Bile rose in my throat, and I stumbled over to the side of the road and fought to keep my meager breakfast down.

When I turned back, Eragon and Arya were methodically mutilating the corpses with swords and spears, disguising the true way they had died.

"How can you do this?" I gasped.

Eragon paused in the act of impaling a soldier on his spear and shot me a look of annoyance. "It was us or them. They were soldiers of the Empire. They were our enemy."

"And so you killed them? Just like that?" I couldn't believe this. I thought I was with the good guys!

"William, calm down," Arya said calmly, sheathing her slim sword. "We had no choice. Had we left them alive, the Empire would have known where we were. I have no doubt they would have killed us without a second thought."

_Instead, we did._ I looked around at the dead men and said, "Now you see why I want to stay with the Varden. I have no stomach for slaughter."

"Then you will have to overcome your cowardice if you are to fight," said Arya cooly.

The accusation stung me. "I'm not a coward," I said shortly. "I will make weapons, but I have no wish to witness their use."

Her reply was cut short when one of the soldiers groaned and sat up. Seeing the three of us standing over him, he gave a yelp of fright and tried to run. He had made it only three feet before Eragon wrapped a hand around his throat, squeezed viciously, and flung the man ten feet away, where he did not rise.

I couldn't help it. I vomited onto the ground, and even after I emptied my stomach, I still retched violently. When I finally stood again, Eragon was staring at me, a peculiar expression on his face.

"Do not think we enjoy slaughter," he said quietly. "We fight for a better, peaceful world. Our fights are violent, but such are the way of things. Do not think we are not haunted by the men we kill. But they are servants of evil, and us the bringers of justice." He had a haunted look on his face, and as he said it he looked down at his hand, still smeared with gore. I could tell by his face that he meant what he said.

"I am not...I could not...I will never be like you," I croaked. "I do not believe in taking another man's life. I will make the Varden's weapons only because I believe that if they win this war, the world will be a better place."

Arya nodded. "That is true. We fight for equality, justice, and freedom." She tossed Eragon his pack and stretched, preparing to resume our journey. I wiped my mouth and strode ahead, leaving the carnage behind. For once, Arya and Eragon hurried to catch up.

At the fire we built that night, I fell asleep as soon as I finished my meager dinner. I drifted between dreams and reality, sometimes hearing voices as my companions talked, other time dreaming I was flying over a field of red flowers. When I awoke from my nap, the conversation between Eragon and Arya had run it's course, and the former was snoozing silently with his feet towards the fire. Arya was staring into the flames, her arms wrapped around her knees.

"You missed the spirits," she said softly. I had no idea what she meant, and didn't really care.

"Arya," I said carefully. "Will you tell me about magic?" When she looked hesitant, I continued, "Have I not yours, Eragon's, and Nasuada's trust?"

"You have," said Arya. "I suppose I can give you some basic details." And she explained about magic, the energies that fueled it, the many ways it could be used, and the types of people who practiced it. I could tell she was being deliberately vague throughout, and her explanation was lacking in details, but it gave me the gist of what magic was. It was valuable knowledge, and I could tell that Arya did not part with it lightly.

"You say that you can use magic to sense people's thoughts and feelings," I said. "Can you see into my mind?"

"I can," she said. "Your memories are very strange; I can only see up to your arrival in Marna. The rest is shrouded, and I cannot see it."

"The sorceress Trianna said the same," I commented. "Why is this? I can recall clearly everything in my past."

"Whatever it is, it is magic of the deepest level," Arya said, frowning. "I myself do not understand. It is clear, however, that you were sent here on purpose, though by what, I do not know."

I had already suspected as much. I didn't know why, but I decided to keep the green light to myself. I was sure that Arya did not know what it was, so I decided not to share the information.

"When we win this war, do you think whatever brought me here will bring me back to my world?"

"I do not know. I can tell that you hope so."

A weariness came over me. _I might get back if I help them win this war they fight. Good thing I already decided to fight with them_. I thanked Arya for her explanation, then snugged my cloak around me like a blanket and promptly drifted off to sleep. The last thing I saw was Arya, staring into the flames.

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Yes, William's a bit of a coward here, but he grows up, I promise. If you didn't like that part, don't worry, keep reading.


	9. Orrin and Possibilities

A few reminders: Watch for typos, leave a review with comments/complements, and follow/favorite if you think the story shows promise. That being said, enjoy another chapter!

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**Orrin and Possibilities**

We arrived at the Varden's camp late in the afternoon the next day. Eragon looked the happiest I'd seen him yet. A broad smile stretched his face, and he laughed, relieved. "We made it!" he exclaimed. "Murtagh, Thorn, hundreds of soldiers, Galbatorix's pet magicians, the Ra'zac—none of them could catch us. Ha! How's that for taunting the king? This'll tweak his beard for sure when he hears of it."

"He will be twice as dangerous then," warned Arya.

"I know," Eragon said, grinning even wider. "Maybe he'll get so angry, he'll forget to pay his troops and they will all throw away their uniforms and join the Varden."

"Why are you so jolly?" I asked him.

"Why shouldn't I be?" he demanded. I heard him shout, _Saphira!_ sending the thought flying over the countryside like a spear.

While he bounded ahead, I dropped into step beside Arya and asked, "Who are Murtagh, Thorn, and Ra'zac?"

"Murtagh is the rider of Thorn, and the Ra'zac are creatures that eat the flesh of men," she said without blinking. "Eragon killed that last one, though."

I was dismayed. "The other side have a rider too?"

"King Galbatorix is a rider as well. He forces his dragon, Shruikan, to obey him. That is why he has lived so long."

"Lived so long...being bonded with a dragon increases your lifespan?"

"Yes. The bond with dragons is what gives us elves our long lives."

"How long?"

"Undying." Whoa. Elves were immortal? And this Eragon kid was too? The thought of him living for hundreds of years while the rest of us humans grew old and died seemed repulsive.

"Magic," said Arya simply, as if reading my thoughts. Maybe she had.

We slowly walked down the hill to the camp. Finally Arya said, "You must accept the violence, William. All of Alagaesia is consumed by it. Only when King Galbatorix is overthrown will there be peace. Until then, we fight until we die or win."

"There is no middle ground?"

"None."

_So much for negotiation. _

Arya stopped suddenly. "You still have to tell me how you summoned the music. I have never heard the likes of it from anywhere in Alagaesia."

Uh-oh. "Would you believe me if I said it's would take me several days to explain it thoroughly?"

Her eyes, cold and calculating, met mine. _She better not be reading my mind._

"I will accept your answer for now," she decided. Then: "You are different from the rest of your kind, human."

_Damn right. I _saved_ the rest of my "kind." _

Any further discussion was cut short when Saphira promptly dived out of a cloud a thousand feet above and roared. Arya winced instinctively and I ducked as she flew over us. It was a sight just as majestic as seeing a squadron of F-22s fly by, minus the sonic boom. A plume of fire shot from the dragon's jaws as she flew toward Eragon.

"I had hoped we could enter the camp without attracting undue attention," Arya muttered, "but I suppose I should have realized we could not be unobtrusive with Saphira around. A dragon is hard to ignore."

_I heard that_, said Saphira, spreading her wings and landing with a thunderous crash. Her massive thighs and shoulders rippled as she absorbed the force of the impact. Folding her wings so they lay flat upon her back, she said,_ I can be stealthy if I want_. Then she cocked her head and blinked, the tip of her tail whipping from side to side._ But I don't want to be stealthy today! Today I am a dragon, not a frightened pigeon trying to avoid being seen by a hunting falcon._

"Greetings, Saphira," said Arya, and twisted her hand over her chest in the elves' gesture of respect. I copied the gesture and repeated her greeting.

Crouching low and bending her long neck, Saphira touched Arya upon the brow with the tip of her snout, and said, _Greetings, älfa-kona. Welcome, and may the wind rise under your wings.I am grateful to you for helping Eragon to return without harm. If he had been captured, I do not know what I would have done! _

"Your gratitude means much to me," said Arya, and bowed. "As for what you would have done if Galbatorix had seized Eragon, why, you would have rescued him, and I would have accompanied you, even if it was to Urû'baen itself."

At that moment, a patrol galloped toward us and, halting thirty yards away because of their nervous horses, asked if they might escort the us to Nasuada. Two of the men dismounted and gave their steeds to Arya and me, and then as a group, we advanced toward the sea of tents. Saphira set the pace: a leisurely crawl that allowed her and Eragon to enjoy the pleasure of each other's company.

As we entered the throng of people, the noise level increased dramatically. All sorts of people surrounded us. Women carrying small children, two boys fighting with wooden swords, men carrying stacks of arrows. I felt a twinge of satisfaction as I pictured those arrows being loaded into repeating crossbows.

Through the crowd of people, twelve tall, slender figures emerged. It took me another second to realize that they were elves.

I leaned toward Arya and whispered, "Why does one of them look like a gorilla?"

"A what?"

"Why is he all furry?"

"He has decorated his body as he sees fit," she said calmly. I decided not to pursue the fact that in front of me was a wolverine-style X-Man wannabe.

The sasquatch/elf and Eragon talked quietly for a few minutes before we resumed our march through the camp. The crowd swelled around us as Saphira made our presence terribly obvious to everyone. People shouted and gestured at Eragon. It was building up to a migraine in my head.

People made requests for help, aid, and offered him money and invitations to dine. It reminded me of the days when I'd first hit it big. The paparazzi had been just as annoying. Suddenly an idea struck me. I raised my voice and cried, "Shadeslayer, will you marry me?"

I doubled over laughing as he looked around. Arya herself grinned. She repeated the call, and we were both laughing as Eragon looked around, bewildered.

Pulling myself together, I noticed that the elves had fallen into step next to our procession.

"Are they acting as bodyguards?" I asked Arya. She nodded.

"All the races of Alagaesia have an interest in keeping him alive," she said. "He is our best hope for overthrowing Galbatorix."

All this hope rested on one kid. Hmm. I was needed a lot more than I had first thought.

Eragon's brother materialized out of the crowd. He and Eragon embraced and exchanged a few sentences. Then Nasuada was there, along with a man wearing a crown that I did not recognize.

"That's King Orrin of Surda, whose land we stand upon now. He shelters the Varden and provides us with men and materials," Arya said when I asked her.

"What happened to his ear?"

"It was injured in an explosion while he was mixing up concoctions in his laboratory."

_Whoa, whoa, whoa…_

"King Orrin has a laboratory? Containing explosive chemicals?"

"I suppose that is the case."

"I must meet with him immediately." I had thought that I would need the dwarves to get me the stuff I needed, but if it was already here...

"Well, you'll be competing with Eragon for his attention after they all give speeches."

Sure enough, Nasuada and Orrin both made addresses to the Varden. Nasuada's was full of propaganda and posh (my job required working with politicians and I knew my way around their speeches), while Orrin's was more serious. I could tell at once by listening to him that he was a cut above the rest of the Varden. He didn't rally the gathered crowd as Nasuada did, but I could tell he didn't care. His mind was on other matters.

Finally, after Eragon too had stumbled over a few words, which nonetheless received a chorus of cheers, the group of people slowly dissipated, and we gathered in Nasuada' pavilion. There was another group of people waiting for us here, but they had the look of nobles rather than commoners.

Thinking quickly, I deduced that they were here to meet Eragon and had no idea who I was, which was what I wanted. I sat down at a table loaded with food and heaped a variety of dishes onto a plate. As I chowed down on some sort of meat pie and a sort of honeyed-apple, I saw Eragon flashing jealous glances at me while he himself remained locked in the crowd of people trying all to speak with him at once.

The gathering went on for hours. I propped my feet up on the table and sat idly daydreaming about what it would be like to ride on Saphira. Finally, when Eragon looked ready to tear his hair out from boredom, the mighty dragon growled, low and threatening. The message was clear: _I'm done with this._ Immediately, the crowd thinned and some positively fled through the large entrance flap. Eragon joined me at the table with Nasuada, Orrin, and Arya, and he too grabbed an apple and a slice of pie. Unfortunately, the royal rulers bombarded him with so many questions that he barely could take three bites. It was quite amusing to watch.

Finally, during a lull in their conversation, I wedged my chair closer to Orrin's and asked, "How'd you blow your ear up?"

Everyone looked at me. I shrugged. "Just curious."

He looked me over hesitantly. "I mixed some chemicals together and apparently they were best off being left alone."

"Do you have beakers and tubes, scales and measures in this laboratory of yours?" I asked, hoping…

He looked startled that I was so well informed. "Yes, without them I would be very precise in anything, would I?"

"No, probably not," I grinned. This was too easy!

"As much as you two are interested in combining powders and burning strange plants," Nasuada said impatiently, "We need to hear Eragon's explanation of his absence." Orrin nodded and turned his attention from me, which was fine. I was already drawing upon my vast stores of knowledge (modest, wasn't I?).

I have to admit, Eragon's daring fight with the Ra'zac was pretty impressive. I was interested in the magical wards he used to deflect arrows and swords. As soon as I started fighting, I was going to get some magic body armor...until I made some Kevlar, anyway.

I got rather bored of the endless talk about fighting, and how Eragon had met this guy called Sloan, and all the other stuff. Then he and Arya described the journey back to the Varden. Arya made a point of mentioning that I had had an adverse reaction to the violent fight on the road. Nasuada raised her eyebrows but said nothing. I could tell that they were all thinking, _what a sissy._ I felt embarrassed. In my defense though, real combat was a hell of a lot different from _Blazing Barrels IV._

I soon lost interest in the conversation, and when Arya left to "go heat a tub of water, wash the sand from my skin, and return my features to their usual shape. I do not feel myself, with the tips of my ears missing, my eyes round and level, and the bones of my face in the wrong places." I hastily made after her. I would have loved to take a bath as well, but somehow I doubted that she would appreciate me joining her.

Instead I went back to my tent. I put my few possessions under my pillow (I had never slept on a pillow filled with real feathers before, and boy does it feel weird), and even though it was only early evening, was out like a light. The last few days had taken a toll on me, but after a few sets of forty winks each, I would be ready to face the new day, or rather, my new destiny.

* * *

Alright! As you might have guessed, I want to really start ramping stuff up. It's time things got interesting. Look out for those future chapters!


	10. Testing, Testing, Not Testing

**Testing, Testing, Not Testing**

_Six Days Later..._

"Cut it," I ordered. The man I had chosen to assist me swung his sword down and severed the rope of the catapult. With a mighty _ka-pwing,_ it flung the barrel I had modified it to hold high into the sky. Nasuada and Orrin, who had gathered to watch, followed its progress through the air.

The wooden barrel flew over three hundred yards before coming to a crash only twelve feet from the dummies I had set up.

I made the mistake of looking, and was consequently blinded for a few seconds when the mercury fulminate exploded. The small group of people gathered to watch groaned and lurched about.

"Is everyone alright?" I called as I blinked white spots from my vision. I had only burned a small amount before this test, and had underestimated it quite a bit. Trust me, eight grams is a hell of a lot different from eighteen pounds.

"Fine," said Nasuada shakily.

"Right as reign!" said Orrin happily. "I can't believe I was reluctant to grant you access to my laboratory. You clearly know more than you let on."

"That I do," I replied. "Now come on, let's see what's left of those dummies!"

They followed me as I dashed through the tall grass to the smoking crater where the charred pieces of a few lumps of burned wood remained. There was no evidence at all of the barrel.

After looking around for a few minutes, Nasuada concluded, "Very effective, William. I think that after this, er…"

"Proof of concept?"

"Yes, this...proof of concept...I shall oblige your requests and assign some members of Du Vrangr Gata to you, as I am convinced that your new weapons will play an important role in our fight. In future, however, please conduct these tests farther away from the camp. That explosion would wake the dead."

"And destroy a wall."

"Yes...that's when we'll see it next, I expect."

"I wish I'd filmed it."

"What?"

"Never mind."

I was pleased with her reaction. It had taken hours to successfully fulminate the mercury, as Nasuada had insisted that half my men work on modifying the Varden's crossbows with repeating mechanisms. I had already grown bored of such a mundane weapon, and when Orrin granted me access to his vast store of chemicals and equipment, I immediately set my sights on something more dramatic, hence the largest mercury fulminate detonation in history. I decided to call it "the Buster."

I was eager to use the spellcasters in my experiments. Not only would magic hasten the production of my designs, it would remove barriers that had blocked mankind's ingenuity since the Stone Age. Imagine nuclear fission at the whim of a word, the ability to summon elements out of the ground! Of course, I had no intention of making an atom bomb, but you get the idea, right?

I left them to gape at the results of the test and dream about the implications and headed back through the camp. Soon I came to the smith Horst's tent, where he was resting peacefully on a hammock outside his tent next to his pregnant wife. I quickly woke him, apologized for my rudeness, and inquired as to whether he had finished work on the project I had set him to days before.

"T'is not yet done," he rumbled, rubbing sleep from his eyes with his massive hands. "It is far more complicated than anything I have ever forged before. I think it should take another few days."

"Oh," I said, disappointed. "Please continue work on it with all possible haste. Consider it essential to the good of the Varden!"

After hearing a weary "Sure thing," I thanked him, nodded to his wife, and made my way back to the large tent where my headquarters was set.

On one side, a line of older boys sat at tables, fashioning repeaters as I had shown them and adhering them to a stack of crossbows, which were removed occasionally and distributed at the training fields for use by the archers. I estimated that I would have the whole stock converted in a matter of days, and that with only twelve men working on it!

On the other side, tables were laden with beakers and scales, test tubes and boxes. Even as I entered, one of my new assistants dropped a small pinch of a sugary paste into a tube filled with potassium chlorate and jumped back as it spat flame and sparks out the end.

"I believe I the most smoke came from the combination in test three," he told me, while another lad noted the reaction on a sheet of parchment with a quill.

"Good!" I said. I rolled up my sleeves and ordered, "You must now try fitting it into a bottle, and see if the reaction is as intense when the mixtures collide as it is smashed on the ground."

"Yes, sir!" he cried. One of the advantages to using teenagers as my helpers as that that they were as eager to blow stuff up as I was. I had also noticed that they had all become fiercely loyal to me, something I valued highly.

Making an effective smoke bomb was just one of my projects. I already had a team figuring out which type of glass worked best with my Molotov cocktail design, which I had made to use cooking oil rather than gasoline. Also, I had a little side project: a switch blade. What better way to take an enemy by surprise than to be holding a metal bar one moment, and a knife the next? Well, there was one way, but Horst was still making it. He'd made the springs and small picks with ease, however, and so my blade was almost done. I was seriously considering using the cloak Arya had given me to look like Ezio the next time I marched into battle. Though it was comfortable and added a little variety to my wardrobe, I couldn't wear it in the lab for fear that any loose clothing might quickly catch fire from one experiment or another.

Being surrounded by all this made me feel at home; more comfortable than I'd been since arriving outside Marna. If I closed my eyes, I could imagine that I was back in a regular chemical lab in my company's headquarters. Of course, the illusion was shattered when I opened my eyes and got a faceful of acrid chlorate smoke, but hey, it was nice while it lasted. I enjoyed the feeling enough that I had decided that I was going to make a platform that would hold my lab-tent hybrid when the Varden was on the move. It would need a dozen horses would pull it, but it was worth the cost to keep my research from stalling every time we advanced a few miles toward our target, the city of Feinster.

Angela, the short herbalist, popped in now and then to watch as we did this and that. I found her company was quite enjoyable, although one time she knocked a jar of [name withheld because I don't want you blowing yourself up] off the table. I just barely caught it, saving us all from rather untimely deaths. Other than that, she was a pleasure to entertain, mainly because entertaining her meant a colorful demonstration of my latest type of pyrotechnic. What can I say? I never really outgrew my pyromaniacal phase.

Her werecat, Solembum, took some getting used to, though. Once, when I was using my t-rod to split water into hydrogen and oxygen with its electric current, he morphed into a human and asked what I was doing. I screamed like a girl (no sexism intended) and dropped the stick into a vial of [name withheld because I don't want you gassing yourself to death]. After an impromptu evacuation of everyone in a forty foot radius, I banned him from the lab.

Orrin only visited a few times. I think he would have loved to work in here all day but his leadership role kept him busy. He was certainly right in what he said, though. I knew a lot more than I let on. I had sworn my assistants to secrecy in the Ancient Language so that the Varden wouldn't be able to get rid of me without dooming themselves. I knew I wouldn't last a week without them. I knew many things, but how to suck food out of the air was not one of them. I thought that Orrin did seem resentful that I kept so many secrets, but where I come from that was the norm.

Nasuada only looked in on me once, and I think that was only to make sure I was actually working. I had just been about to set fire to a beaker of hydrogen gas when she walked in. Fortunately I saw her at the last second and didn't scare her out of her wits. She didn't even look at the lab, though. Just me. Arya was right when she said that Nasuada had a thing for me. Unfortunately, as soon as she left my assistants, boisterous, loud teenagers that they were, began a loud rendition of some variant of the "sitting in a tree" song. It took ten minutes to get them to shut up and get back to work. Nasuada was, like, twenty years old. It wasn't really my style to go for someone ten years younger than me (well there was this one model, but that was different). When you have your pick of the lot, you get bored of looks faster than you'd think. My latest girlfriend had been a physics professor at U.C. Berkeley. The fact that this was the first time in weeks that I was thinking about her really says something about our relationship, though.

Even the small girl, Elva, visited me once. It was very peculiar. She darted in, looked at me, then at the workshop, then back to me, all the while frowning, as though trying to discern something that wasn't there. Finally, she swore and left again. It was quite bizarre.

Days past. I followed through on my idea, and put the lab-tent onto a flatbed-style wheeled platform that could be pulled by horses. I then repeated the process on my storage tent, where I kept all my finished weapons. I added two leather sleeves to my belt, in which I could keep my two switchblades, ready to be drawn at a moment's notice. I fabricated a Kevlar-like fiber and wove it into the lining of my jacket. I had both my blades and armor reinforced with spells by the magicians of Du Vrangr Gata. I created a small stockpile of gunpowder.

Four days after the Buster test, I went to visit Horst again. He announced that my project was complete, and handed me a small wooden box. I opened it.

Inside on a pad of velvet lay an exact replica of a Beretta M9, complete with a spare magazine and several neat rows of shells and bullets. I was blown away, terrible pun intended. I had not expected that in less than a month a medieval smith would be able to forge a fully working handgun, even with detailed schematics from me. I gave him a sincere thank you and went back to my lab, where I carefully loaded the shells with the gunpowder. The bullets Horst had made to my own specifications: thin enough to pierce armor and fragile enough to burst apart soon afterward. Armor-piercing rounds with hollow-point tendencies, I suppose. I then slid the gun into the leather holster I had painstakingly stitched, and practised drawing, marveling in sheer amazement that the thing might actually work. Horst was clearly a master smith.

Over the course of a few days, I had my magicians duplicate the bullets until I had enough to qualify as a redneck. Then I made myself a few batches of specials. One group was tipped with mercury to shred any exposed body parts. One was loaded with half the gunpowder to be less lethal. I was not a man to be messed with.

The second thing I did was to make a collapsible blowpipe and confiscate Angela's stock of taser-sticks, "for the good of the Varden." I embedded bits of the enchanted wood in my darts, taking extreme care not to poke myself. When I tested it on one of my assistants (he volunteered) the results matched that of a real Taser closely, except that my range was limited not by wires but by the strength of my breath (he won't volunteer for anything else after nearly thirty seconds of Tasing before I pulled the dart out). I averaged a good twenty yards.

I added this new weapon and my original t-rod to my belt, along with small attachable boxes containing spare darts and bullets. You've probably guessed that my belt looked like a utility belt by now, what with all the knives, guns, and blow guns hanging off it, plus all my ammunition. If you did, you were right. In fact, it became rather cumbersome to wear, so I decided to leave it off except for combat.

And the chance to truly test my weapons came the very next day. I was in the middle of helping one of the lads fit a stopper into a very uncooperative bottle of nitroglycerin when the Varden's war drums sounded. Rather than descend into chaos, we began a pre-planned series events: we put all the equipment away into boards under the tables and hitched the storage tent to a group of horses. I directed my mobile munitions storeroom toward the side of the camp with the most commotion. I saw Nasuada and orrin gathered with Eragon and Arya, talking and glancing at a group of black boats that had sailed up the river near our camp. Enemy soldiers garbed in the tunics of the Empire formed ranks and advanced toward the camp.

"Come on!" I yelled to my men and directed the tent up a hill, where I had a good view of the soon-to-be battlefield. My men pulled several catapults up behind me as well as several ballista. Right on the ball, they broke open the stores of our carefully built weapons and loaded them onto the catapults, ready to fire. I ran down the hill to where Nasuada was directing men. She looked tense and nervous. Horns blared from both armies. And the battle began.


	11. More Than Just a Man

**More Than Just a Man**

I ran back up the hill to give some final instructions to my assistants.

"Fire when you can see their faces," I said. "Or if one of them's about to kill me." I ran a hand over my belt. I felt as though I had not made my weapons soon enough. What was a pistol going to do against three hundred men with swords? Quite a lot, I hoped.

Since I had a strange aversion to being stabbed to death, I decided not to go charging out on the front lines. I would wait for them to come to me. I leaned against a catapult, leisurely checking my weapons while sounds of battle wafted up to me. I peered over the edge of the slope as the battle began. It was mayhem. The men fought without regard for themselves, thinking only to hack and stab. Then another roar sounded. I looked around to see the blood red dragon, Thorn, gliding towards us. Immediately, Saphira rose to meet him.

There was an explosive whoosh of air as my men directed the catapults into the fighting throng, aiming for the bulk of King Gabrownick's troops. I saw from the red stripes on the barrels that they were our anti-personnel weapons. I had not intended to make them, but when one of my assistants came up with the idea himself and I would have looked like an idiot to turn it down. Hence the barrel had an inner core of mercury fulminate surrounded by sacks of nails and oil. You did _not_ want that thing anywhere within 50 feet of you.

When it blew apart and blasted about thirty soldiers with boiling oil and bits of metal, they didn't even flinch. They just kept fighting, oblivious to the burning oil or nails embedded in their armor. It had to hurt. Were they zombies or something? _Maybe magic here includes necromancy, _I thought_._ Upon seeing my little artillery station, a group of twenty soldiers detached itself from the mob and charged up the hill toward us. I pulled out my pistol, which felt weak and insignificant compared to the huge swords the men were swinging. One of them was laughing as he ran, even though a nail was sticking out of his head.

I centered the pistol on the lead man.

"Stop!" I yelled. He didn't even slow.

The gun bucked in my hands. There was a flash and a puff of smoke. The man stopped, as did all of his fellows. He looked down at the neat hole in his armor, then back at me. He grinned, his mouth filled with blood, and he resumed running up the hill toward me. My next shot took off part of his head. That stopped him. In fact, it knocked his corpse into several others and half the group went tumbling back down the incline. Immediately a Buster hit the ground at their feet and promptly obliterated them.

My pistol did not seem very weak anymore. I carefully picked off the remainder of the group with neat headshots, then for good measure tossed them a Molotov cocktail. Fortunately, the wind did not blow the smell of burning flesh in my direction.

"They must be immune to pain or something," I told the men guarding the boys manning the catapults, who shifted their repeating crossbows uneasily. "Aim for the head."

The battle was brutal. Most of the Varden would slice a soldier good, but then the soldier would get back up and hit him from behind. Even the Urgals were overwhelmed in places. We might very well have lost the battle if my hilltop brigade wasn't raining death on them from above. We had stopped wasting our anti-personnel bombs and kept up a steady barrage of high explosives.

"William!" I heard a voice, high and and anxious. I turned to see Nasuada on her horse, gesturing frantically. "The ship! The fifth ship!"

I whirled around and saw to my horror that one of the black-sailed ships had drifted farther down the river until it had come to a stop in a bend just 500 yards away. I swore, gave a few choice instructions too my men, and grabbed a couple choice weapons from a crate. I nodded to Nasuada and dashed down the hill, jumping over the bodies of the charred men I had killed.

As I approached the bank of the river, the remaining men on board jeered at what must have looked ridiculous: a single man, apparently unarmed, with two bottles in his hands. I saw one of them raise a bow to his shoulder, saw him release the arrow, but it was too late to-

Wump. The blow knocked my back three feet. My chest burned where the arrow had hit my Kevlar jacket. I had completely overlooked padding. Then again, I was lucky to be alive.

I got unsteadily to my feet. The men in the boat gaped at me, unable to believe that an arrow had hit me point blank and that I was still alive. I felt rage boil up inside of me.

"You thirsty, mother fuckers?" I screamed. "This one's on the house!" I threw the lit Molotov. It arced gracefully through the air and shattered on the deck of the boat. The flames spread hungrily across the wooden deck of the boat, engulfing the sailors. After the fire had consumed the entire deck, I threw the other bottle I was holding. When it smashed, it released a large plume of purple smoke. A marker.

The sinister blue Buster barrel sailed over my head and landed directly on the boat. It actually smashed through the weakened upper deck before exploding, causing even more damage as it blew the boat apart from amidships. Flaming bits of wood and canvas rained down upon me, and I crouched low to the ground to avoid being crushed by the flying debris. When I got up, I saw a second ship was bearing down on me.

_You've gotta be kidding! _ I had told my men only to aim at my marker. How was I supposed to take out a ship full of painless warriors? Fortunately, that genius mind of mine was already whirring away even as I sprinted toward the ship. A crazy, hair brained, awesome idea came to me. I grabbed the rigging on the side of the hull and hauled myself over the railing. When I got to my feet and disentangled my feet from a pile of loose rope, I saw a group of ten men coming at me with a nasty collection of spears and swords. They were grinning like it was Christmas morning or something.

That made me mad. These men reveled in slaughter. They were the monsters, not me. They were a scourge to be wiped out. I calmly checked the ammo in my pistol. Full. The my other hand pulled a switchblade from it's sleeve on my belt. The men were slowly closing in on me, oblivious to anything else.

_William!_ Arya shouted in my head. _What are you doing? You'll be killed!_

_Not if you come and help me right now! _I closed my mind to her so she wouldn't distract me at an important moment. I then decided to see if I could pull some logical reasoning on these guys.

"Gentlemen, did you come here expecting to die?" I asked calmly.

The lead man stopped smiling and glared at me. "Death does not frighten us. We do not feel pain and our families are paid much for our absence."

"And yet, you're on a suicide mission! Surely you cannot walk into death's embrace so serenely! Just surrender! Live to die another day! I would not have come here if I did not think I could kill you all."

Unfortunately I seemed to have made a mistake with that line. The men's smiles reappeared and the lead man jeered, "A nutter like you finish the ten of us? Not likely, you fool."

I sighed. I think the sight of me just standing there letting them come unnerved them somewhat, sort of a he-must-know-something-we-don't feeling, but it didn't stop them from coming at me. I accepted that I was going to have to fight my way out of this bunch of wack jobs. I let them come until the lead man stopped and raised his sword, preparing to deal me a death blow.

Instead of killing me, he brought his mighty blade down on thin air. I had dodged and now slashed him across the throat with my switchblade. Taking advantage of the momentary confusion, I shot one of them in the head and stooped to grab a pile of spare rigging, which I threw at one of them to buy myself some time.

The men growled and charged at me. I waited until the last moment, and then jumped out of the way. One man could not stop in time and toppled head first into the water. I blew another man's head off and stabbed another in the chest. The spells in the blade kept it from shattering against his armor. While he was busy looking at the knife in his chest, I kicked him away and counted: six men left. They came at me like a herd of angry rhinos, the deck shaking under their feet. Even when my gun made three profound arguments for them to give up, and three of them had toppled lifeless to the deck, they kept coming. My gun needed work on its persuasion tactics, it seemed.

Then a crazy idea came to me. Before I dodged the latest charge, I took careful aim and shot at a rope holding a sail furled. It snapped cleanly. The heavy sail fell between us, tripping two and allowing me to kick their heads back to snap their necks.

The remaining man eyed me warily, finally realizing how dangerous I was. It was a mistake, though. By stopping, he allowed me a still target. I noticed that he was the one whom I had stabbed. Finally, he decided he didn't care, and bounded toward me.

_How thoughtful of him to bring my knife back,_ I thought. My gun gave him a sincere thank you.

As I was pulling the blade from his headless body, a very breathless Arya swept over the side and adopted a fighting stance, expecting to see a horde of soldiers bearing down on me. Instead she saw me wiping my blade clean and sliding it back onto my belt, surrounded by nine lifeless bodies.

I felt unusually calm. Before I ordered the first red barrel launched, I had accepted that I would be responsible for the deaths of men, men who had had hoped and dreams before Galbatorix took them and turned them into monsters. But in the end, did killing them make me a monster as well? No, I reasoned. Galbatorix survived by being a source of fear. If the Varden won, Nasuada would keep power by being a subject of love. It is always better to have the people love you, something I knew very well. The Varden fought for peace and freedom, while the Empire wanted obedience and oppression. One side would triumph eventually, and in the meantime I would kill in the better one's name.

"I underestimated you," Arya said quietly. "When we fought the soldiers on that road, I had thought you weak and timid. Now it is clear you are a warrior to rival Eragon, for without magic words or weapons you cleared a ship of its crew and came out with not one wound." Nasuada clambered up onto the deck after her, eyeing the corpses with surprise.

Suddenly Arya's slanted eyes widened. She looked behind me. I whirled around as a boy no older than sixteen jumped out of a hatch, his arm raised to throw a knife. Arya reacted fast, using magic to kill him instantly, but his knife was already in the air, winging its way toward me. I raised my hand in a desperate attempt to catch it, but I was too slow. Fortunately, I had on my Kevlar jacket, which stopped the blade from eviscerating me. In fact, the blade bounced off my chest and into my hand, where I caught it. Nasuda and Arya looked at me in wonder, and I realized that to them it must have looked as though I had caught the blade an instant before it would have gutted me. Ezio indeed.

The battlefield was bloody, filled with bodies of the dead and dying. I checked on my assistants, who all seemed shaken but unhurt. Apparently word of my violent adventure had preceded me, and they looked at me wonder and admiration. I was far from a scientist experimenting with powders and burning plants now. I was a warrior.


	12. Alas, for Our Time is Near

YES, I CHANGED MY PEN NAME, IN CASE YOU WERE WONDERING.

* * *

**Alas, for Our Time is Near**

"Again," I said mercilessly.

"How many do you need?" Eragon groaned.

"Five more. All like the first one. Now keep going."

We were sitting in front of Horst's makeshift forge, and I was having Eragon shape a chunk of molten metal with magic. To make sure he got it right I had to actually let him into my mind, which was a really bizarre feeling, but it was worth it to make sure he did exactly what I wanted.

When he had finished the last of the metal tubes and muttered a spell to cool them instantly, I took them gingerly and carefully screwed them into a boxy contraption with a crank on one side.

When I was sure that it was secure, I said, "Why does anyone bother with forging if magic does it so quickly?"

He groaned and rubbed his back. "Because now I feel like a piece of -"

Saphira rumbled gently to stop him finishing the sentence, but I got the point.

I tested the crank, making sure that it rotated the barrels and cocked back the hammer.

"Thanks. You've been a big help," I told Eragon, who grumbled something in reply. To be honest, we weren't on the best terms, especially after I'd made the mistake of telling him what Arya had said. Nonetheless, he had no choice but to help me. The alternative was explaining himself to an angry Nasuada, who would give him the "William is bettering the Varden" speech, which he hated even more than helping me, because it rubbed in how important it was to help me.

I bowed to Saphira, who was sitting on a hurriedly cleared patch of grass, and returned to my command tent, as I had taken to calling it. Following the battle against the anestheticals, I had ordered that my assistants train in fighting as well, as they were the only people I would ever trust with advanced weapons like the one I was carrying now.

"Did anyone prepare the batch of ammunition I said I needed?" I asked the tent at large.

"I did," said one of them, looking up from the grenade he was making and gesturing to a box sitting on a table. "I didn't make too many because I figured you could have the magicians duplicate as many as you needed." A stifled groan sounded from the corner that the magicians liked to hang out in.

I opened the box and grinned. Several rows of thick cartridges sat connected by a chain. I loaded the first on into the boxy device and racked the large slide on the top.

"Party time," I announced. I carried the box and my machine out to the edge of the camp, an excited crowd of my assistants following me.

My personal testing grounds consisted of a field full of straw stuffed dummies. Most had bullet holes and arrows sticking out of them. Some were charred and burned. One was just a smoldering post sticking out of the ground.

I set the contraption down on a table and aimed it at a dummy. I gave the crank and experimental turn. The barrel turned, the hammer snapped back and forward and the gun let out the satisfying _CRACK _of a shot. I grinned. _Excellent. _

My assistants cheered me on as I spun the crank, the six barrels spinning as fast as I could turn them. I must have cooked off more than a hundred rounds in fifteen seconds. The dummy slowly shredded itself and finally dropped to the ground, the supporting post having been completely severed. I moved to a second on, and then a third.

I stopped just short of the last shell when the three dummies were just smoldering lumps on the ground. I opened the Gatling and removed the empty ammo belt. I tossed the last bullet to one of the magicians as I walked away.

"More."

"There is no way in Angvard that this is going to work."

"Three crowns say it will."

"Ha! You're on."

"Shut up," I said irritably. "I made it, so it's going to work."

The idea that had them in frenzy was that I had painstakingly hooked one of my Gatlings (after another "proof of concept" Nasuada hastily cleared Eragon's schedule for a few days) up to the chassis of a cart pulled by a horse. No, the cart did not come with a chassis. I had to add that on myself. The plan was to get the horse at a gallop, spinning the thing faster than any normal human could. That was the best outcome. The worst was that it would explode in my face.

I climbed up onto the cart and gripped the minigun fiercely. I stood there for half a minute before straightening up and saying angrily, "How do I start this thing?"

One of my assistants walked up and slapped the horse on the rear. That started her right up.

"This...is...madness!" I screamed as I plummeted away at forty miles an hour, holding onto the gun mount for dear life. My hair flapped in my face as I carefully spun the gun around, blinking my eyes and trying to see the targets. When I thought I might have a 1% chance of hitting the damn things, I jammed the lever down, connecting the static gears of the Gatling with the wildly spinning ones of the cart, which were driven by a belt that came out of the floor.

"AAAHHHHH!" I screamed as I zoomed around, bullets flying every which way. Fortunately, most of them hit the targets. Some of them ricocheted around before burying themselves in the ground. My assistants dived for cover. Events seemed to unfold in slow motion. There was a _pop...pop...pop _as the gun belched flame and smoke and then a _thwack...thwack...thwack _as they impacted. After another minute, the ammo belt clicked and fell at my feet, empty. The immediate danger of everyone dying having been lifted, I decided to jump. I hit the ground and rolled on the soft grass.

When I came up, I dizzily staggered over to my group of assistants, who were picking themselves up and dusting themselves off.

"Well, I don't think we're ever doing that again," I said shakily.

There was silence, then-

"Are you kidding?" shouted one lad.

"That was amazing!" cried another.

"You looked totally badass!" another yelled.

I grinned in spite of myself. After I had taught them to use that word they used it frequently. Also, it meant that my little exploit must have looked better from the sidelines.

"You completely hammered the targets!" one of them said. I looked, and saw to my surprise that the majority of the bullets had actually hit the targets lined up across the field.

_Hmm...maybe with some shock absorbers and iron sights I may actually use this thing correctly, _I thought. Maybe I could get a smoother ride, too…

_"NO," _Saphira and Eragon said together.

"Aw, come one," I pleaded. "Don't you know how crucial air support can be?"

"What are you talking about?" said Eragon irritably.

It was hopeless. I had been begging him to let me ride Saphira for the last half-hour and the answer had remained the same. It wasn't worth another hour of my time explaining it all to him either. Just because you had a dragon didn't give you the right to be a jerk. If he weren't able to kill me in half a second with magic, I would have had the advantage. I could shoot him about ten times faster than he could pull a sword on me. Saphira would have barbequed me where I stood, of course, but you got the idea.

I muttered a few more obscenities and trudged away. I had enough things to do without arguing with a pubescent, testosterone-fueled teenager. He was a complete idiot, and yet he was the only hope "Good" seemed to have in this fight.

My work became more frantic as the Varden closed in on Feinster. Nasuada wanted me to invent equipment to either open the large gates to the city or destroy the walls surrounding it. Since Feinster would be ideal as a fallback point if we lost at Belatona or Dras-Leona, I was told that destroying the walls was a last resort. Naturally, I set about this challenge with relish. When word reached me that Eragon would be negotiating with the Dwarves in one of their far off cities, I quickly booked up all his free time, having him shape every possible design I could think of. My plan would be to somehow scale the walls of Feinster, open the gate, and then stop them from being closed again, most likely by damaging whatever gears were used to operate them. I picked a group of my brightest and most loyal assistants to help me and set to work.

After the success of my pistol, I knew that guns were the way to go. Since I was able to share the exact designs of them with Eragon in our minds, it was with ease that I produced a small armory of weapons in relative secrecy. Eragon must have grown to hate me, since I must have completely tired him out every night, but apparently his fear of a reprimand from Nasuada was great enough that he performed admirably and without complaint.

Among my arsenal were sniper rifles and sub-machine guns. I was well aware of the dangers if friend or foe alike stole these weapons, so I had forged a large metal gun cabinet and kept it in my storage tent. I was very glad I had sworn everyone I worked with to secrecy. I figured it would be best to keep it a secret that I had the power to kill people with the flick of a finger.

On a lighter note, I had taken my notions about Assassin's Creed deeply to heart. I had converted my switchblades to lever-activated hidden blade gauntlets. If I unlocked the devices by pulling a lever (I didn't want to accidently cut my hand off), I could deploy the blade by flicking my wrist, which locked it into place. Once I pressed the release button and gravity pulled it back into its sheath, I could lock it in place again. They were, as my assistants were happy to call them, badass. They looked a little weird when worn without the right contemporary clothing, but hey, it was the thought that counted.

After Eragon left for the Dwarven city of Tronjheim, the Varden began to travel in earnest, and my little mobile tent platform proved its worth. I didn't have to bother waiting until we stopped for a few days before I could resume my work; I could do it while we trundled along. In fact, I was amazed that no one else here had already thought of a covered wagon. The fabric was light enough to let the sunlight in so we didn't need torches (fire in a laboratory is always a risky business) but it was heavy enough to prevent sunburn, a common condition among the Varden. If I was never able to escape from this place, I could at least make myself rich by selling sunscreen.

Days passed. I labored away the hours, working and sleeping, eating and exercising. I had finally come up with my plan to capture Feinster, and it required that I stay in shape. There weren't any fast foods to eat around here, so this was relatively easy.

When night fell when we were only a day away from Feinster, I gathered my assistants together around a large bonfire. I explained my plan and told them all what needed to happen. I double checked the equipment, and lubricated the Gatlings a final time (you didn't think I wasn't using them, did you?). Then we spent a fun night finding creative ways to destroy the last of the target dummies, trying to ignore the battle looming on the horizon.

* * *

Author's Note: Well, I am hurrying things along a bit, but I want to write the fun stuff, so my apologies for all the time lapses in this chapter. Also, to those of you who are angry that I haven't been following Less Wrong's elemental rules of Fanfiction, that will soon change. William must have his own challenges, and I am busy thinking up those challenges right now. Also, please let me know if you like the new cover image or prefer the old one. I could use either. As always, please review! Follow or favorite if you like it! And do point out any stupid typos – they're cunning at slipping through Spellcheck. Thanks for reading!


	13. and the City Falls

Author's Note: Sorry for the wait - I've been busy with my other first world problems :)

* * *

**...and the City Falls**

_"My dear Angela, I am only evil in the eyes of those who hate me, and only hated by those who fear me."_

* * *

"How come no one has made this into a national tournament?" I asked. "If it's the most popular game, it makes sense to."

"What?" Angela asked, looking puzzled.

"Never mind."

We were sitting at a small table, a set of knucklebones between us. Angela's tent was crowded with a wild assortment of cauldrons, plants, and weapons. Her werecat, Solembum, lay curled lazily on her cot, watching us out of one eye.

Angela deftly tossed the bones and managed to catch five of them on the back of her hand, winning the round - for the sixth time in a row.

"Whatever happened to beginner's luck?" I muttered as I prepared to toss them myself.

"Well, they happen to be loaded."

"You little son of - no, wait - daughter of...ah, never mind. Have you been using them the whole time?!"

"Yes."

"Figures," I said, leaning back in my rickety chair. "You know, after everything settles down, you should play me fair and square."

She raised an eyebrow and leaned forward. "Is that a request?"

"A request for you to play fair, if that doesn't sound too unreasonable, not put some sort of sap on the bones to make them stick to your skin."

"You figured it out quick," she said.

"I look forward to using it against you."

"You evil-"

"My dear Angela, I am only evil in the eyes of those who hate me, and only hated by those who fear me."

"Humph. I do hate to be on the receiving end of a thought-provoking quote."

"Elementary, my dear Angela, elementary," I drawled, throwing an obvious wink at Solembum, who gazed steadily back. "The mere child's play of-"

"William!" a voice cried suddenly from the entrance of the tent. We both whirled around, hands reaching for concealed weapons, but it was only a page, one of many that ran throughout the camp carrying messages.

"You're to report to Nasuada immediately!" the lad cried, and dashed off to deliver another message.

"About time she let me do my thing," I muttered, standing up and stretching. "My men have been keeping count; that's over two hundred we could've saved if she'd just let me put my plan into action as soon as we reached the city."

Angela sat back down. Solembum sidled over to the table and rubbed her leg with his head.

_You seem awfully sure of yourself, _the werecat said, not looking at me. _Do not let your pride get the better of you._

"I won't," I promised. I said a quick goodbye to Angela and ducked out of the tent.

The Varden was in full war mode. Entrenched less than a mile away from the walled city of Feinster, we kept the city under siege while countless attempts were made to storm the gates, resulting in the deaths of hundreds. Nasuada had refused to allow me to blow up the walls, insisting that the city was to be left as undamaged as possible. Ironically, she had ordered that the mass of huts outside the walls be set ablaze. This did make sense as the smoke obscured our camp and made reconnaissance impossible for them. Unfortunately, it was also impossible for us. At least the smoke and smell of the dead weren't wafting our way.

"William!" Nasuada smiled when I entered the tent, twisting gracefully to avoid being impaled by a platoon of spearmen as they stampeded past. "I have decided that you should have your turn at attempting to gain access to the city."

"It took an awful lot of lives lost for you to decide that," I noted blandly.

Nasuada frowned. "I'll tell you what," she said, leaning forward. "If you succeed without dying, I will allow you to go first when we get to Belatona and Dras-Leona."

"Deal," I grinned, snatching a bread roll from a platter of food sitting next to her. "By tomorrow afternoon, you will be inside Feinster and in control."

That was clearly not the response she had expected. "You seem very sure of yourself."

"I know what I'm doing," I said. "I have a foolproof plan. However, it requires darkness, preferably the middle of the night."

"That would leave you less than twelve hours to open the gates and let us in," Nasuada said. "I don't know how many men you're bringing, but I hope you realize that you'll be going up against the bulk of Lady Lorena's forces."

I sighed. "You're underestimating me, my Lady. I am more capable than you think."

"So you've actually been creating useful things while you've been shut up in that laboratory of yours? I figured you just liked the loud bangs and smells."

"I graduated from mixing powders and burning plants a while ago," I said coldly. "Buy me time until nightfall, and then you'll see what I can do."

* * *

"Still feeling so sure?" Harden, one of my assistants, asked.

"Why do people keep saying that?" I asked, tying up my black jumpsuit.

"Well, most people are nervous before a fight."

"This isn't going to be a fight. This will be like a one-sided boxing match against an opponent tied to a chair," I said, helping him into his ghillie suit. "They won't know we're there until it's too late."

We finished putting on our gear. I met up with the rest of my team; the four others whom I knew could rely on. They were gathered around the embers of a fire, watching as the sun slowly dipped below the horizon.

"Did everyone take a nap earlier like I said?" I asked. They all nodded. "Good. We're going to wait here for another hour or two while we wait for it to get dark. Then we have a city to capture."

Harden grunted. "Six men will be the ones to conquer the city of Feinster."

"Well...with a bit of help, I suppose."

"_A bit of help?_ This is an army of over a-"

"I know, and I don't care. This is our moment to prove that we've actually been productive in all the time we've been experimenting."

"They already know we have been from what you did against the Laughing Dead. It's amazing Nasuada hasn't demanded mass production of our weapons yet."

"The day I arm each soldier with a bazooka is the day that pigs sprout wings and fly."

Harden raised an eyebrow. "What's a bazooka?"

"Never you mind."

We passed the time waiting for the sun to go down and the shadows to creep up around us. Finally, when the crickets were chirping merrily and the majority of lights in the Varden's camp had winked out, we made our advance. In ghillie suits, grass and leaves covering our bodies, we silently slid over the ground. Plants rustled softly as we gently eased ourselves forward, one foot at a time. We had half a mile to cover, so we took our time. Slowly, we crossed the plain between the two forces. Against the starry night sky, the sentinels on the walls were clearly silhouetted. We stopped every time one of them paused on his walk up and down the wall, but none of them saw us, and they all continued on their way. Our camouflage did its job well.

We reached the base of the massive wall that encircled the city. I put a gloved hand on the stone, feeling the cold of its lifeless bricks. I gave a final glance upward: not a guard in sight.

I gestured to one of them. He opened his pack and pulled out three chunky guns. I took one of them and clicked off the safety. Then I pointed it up to the battlements at the top of the wall and squeezed the trigger.

There was a soft hiss and a muffled _thunk._ A hook attached to a thin line shot up into the sky. The padded barbs caught in an opening in the battlements. I pulled on it experimentally, pleased to find that it held. There were similar noises as the grappler guns in the hands of two other men were fired. The bursts of compressed gas were quiet enough that they did not sound any louder than a quiet whisper. There was a clunking sound as the hooks caught, but the padding muffled it sufficiently.

"Gloves on," I ordered. "Two to a line." I grabbed the thin wire. It was coated with a substance that reached with another chemical on my gloves to become extremely adhesive. I wrapped my hands around the line and slowly started to heave myself up.

You've probably all climbed up a rope at some point in your life, and you might find yourself thinking, _why is it so hard? _Well, try climbing up a quarter-inch thick rope with no knots that's eighty feet long. It's slightly harder. If not for my Mission Impossible gear, I would have had a heard time of it. Hell, I still had a hard time of it, but I took comfort knowing it was this or charging out on the front lines. It took me about fifteen minutes to finally climb over the battlements and drop, panting, to the floor.

Within minutes, the others were up as well. We left the ropes hanging; their grayish coloring would allow them to blend in with the stones to which they were tied. In a single movement, I pulled off the ghillie suit, revealing my dark gray jumpsuit. The others did likewise.

They say that black is the best stealth color. This is not true. The ideal color is a dark shade of gray, which is the real color of shadows. Dark black will do in a jiffy, but my life was worth a bit more than a jiffy.

"That was harder than I expected," I moaned, peeling my gloves off and stuffing them in my bag.

"That's what she said," one of them muttered back. I rolled my eyes. Teaching them that terrible joke had definitely been a mistake.

I divided the team into two groups of three. In opposite directions, we crept across the top of the wall, moving slowly to muffle our footsteps on the aged stone. The plan was to take out all the patrolling sentries, sabotage the catapults and ballistae, then wait until morning to open the gate, when the Varden would poor in.

We had only been walking for a minute when we heard the loud thunks of footsteps approaching. I quietly slipped my blowgun out, extended it, and stuck one of my special darts in it. The footsteps were loud and I could tell at once where the man was. He would intercept us in about ten seconds. I made my move.

"Hello," I whispered.

"Who's there?" the man demanded. "Who are you?"

That was all I needed to be sure of where he was. I took a deep breath, blew the dart, then sprinted forward to catch the man before he could hit the ground in a clatter. As I had expected, the Taser dart worked perfectly, incapacitating the man without seriously harming him.

As I lowered him to the ground, I saw my dart had hit him right over the heart. That had to hurt.

"Sorry, mate," I murmured as my two assistants tied him up.

"Ugh greg ivf geab vga," he groaned incoherently. I pulled the dart out as he was tied up and gagged. We wedged him off to the side and hoped he wouldn't somehow push himself off.

We encountered two more sentinels like the first, and subdued them equally easily. When I estimated we were a hundred feet from our starting point, we ran, no, shuffled into our first pair of catapults. Two men guarded them, but they were both in the middle of naps, so I didn't even have to use my darts. A quick blow to the head sent them all from dreamland to deep REM.

When they were both hog tied, I considered the catapults. They were very similar to the ones I myself used, so it was easy to identify their weak points. A cut here, a crack there, and a few loosened nails later, and the thing was ready to fall apart the instant they used it. I repeated the process in the other one, all the while trying to produce as little noise as possible.

After about another hour of sabotaging ballistae and catapults and making sure all the sentries were unavoidably detained,, we rendezvoused with the rest of my team over the great gates to the city. The small guardhouses in which the gears could be accessed where only two stories tall, meaning there was still 55 feet to descend to their roofs. Fortunately, I had guessed this would be the case and was prepared with another batch off rope. With three men to each guardhouse, we slid quietly down the cords to the tops of the buildings. I looked quickly around. We would be visible to anyone who looked at us, now that we were against the wall facing the city. Our only protection was our gray clothing, which made us shadows in the shadows.

There were trap doors on the roofs, which made our jobs a whole lot easier. I simply opened the door and dropped in a bottle of our homemade tear gas. After a few minutes, I leaned over the side off the roof and smashed the window to allow the stuff to dissipate. I dropped through the door, ready to attack.

The three men, who had been playing knucklebones at a small table, now lay coughing and gasping on the floor. I felt a bit sorry for them as they were bound and gagged, but then I turned my attention back to the mission.

"Meet up with the others," I instructed the two men with me. When they left, I snatched up the knucklebones on the table. First chance I got, I was going to beat Angela at her own game. I snuffed out the candle and slipped down the stairs. I was confronted by a large set of gears and controls, which had to be the method of opening the huge gates.

"It will take three men," Harden said after I joined them. "The others are in the opposite house. We have to turn at the same time."

"Righto," I said. "We'll wait till early morning to open them. That's when I told Nasuada to attack. Our main concern is that some guard will find the others and raise the alarm, so be ready to move if we have to."

"But don't we need to stay and open the gates?" Harden protested. "Surely our lives aren't worth more than-"

"I value my life rather highly," I snapped back. "Besides, if this doesn't work, we can always blow the damn doors open."

And so we waited. When, after two hours, no alarms were raised, I broke out the knucklebones to waste the time. I was pleased to find that when Angela wasn't switching them on me, it was really quite fun.

Finally, when the first rosy fingers of dawn were creeping past the far wall, I gave the order to open the gates. We put our backs into it, moaning and groaning. It was clearly meant for more than three, but ever so slowly we managed to open them. They gave off an almighty racket, however, and soon soldiers were running and shouting in our direction. The alarm had been raised, but the damage was done. Hearing the noise, the Varden came speeding over the plain, yelling cries of excitement and intimidation. As we got momentum up spinning the gears, it became easier and easier until we had the doors all the way open. Then we drew our weapons and waited for soldiers to enter and try to close them again.

As it happened, they never got the chance to try. The first wave of Varden forces roared through the open gates. At the front line were several chariots on which were mounted the Gatling guns, which silenced any opposition they were aimed at. Behind them came the bulk of the Varden's forces. I watched from the roof of the guardhouse as the army dispersed into the city. It was over now. Without the catapults, there was no way to stop them. Galbatorix's soldiers were crushed.

A half hour-after the fighting began, Eragon and Saphira arrived. The Varden let loose a cheer, and the soldiers let loose a groan. Saphira promptly set fire to several buildings. It _did_ help to have the world's largest flamethrower on your side.

I would have been content to watch the battle rage from my comfortable spot on the roof of one of the guardhouses, but all too soon Arya was calling, "William! Help us take the keep! The soldiers will not surrender until we have Lady Lorena!"

I groaned and ran out to fight, leaving my assistants behind to keep the gates open. I ran through the city, trying to stick to the outskirts where the fighting was less present. Not only did I want to avoid fighting, but I wanted to reach Lorena's palace quickly enough to head off the majority of the bloodshed. Now that watching the battle over a game of knucklebones was out, I might as well make it go fast.

_How pacifist of me, _I thought dryly. _The violence in the air must be getting to me._

I had to only engage in two minor struggles, and my pepper spray was sufficient to deal with them. I was slightly alarmed that the bottle already felt half empty. I would have to use some of Angela's plants to create a substitute soon.

I came to the part of the city where the walls of the keep joined perpendicularly with the surrounding wall. The wall to the keep was only thirty feet high, and (props to me) I managed to scale the thing barehanded, using a combination of plentiful handholds and my gloves, which kept my hands from being shredded on the jagged mortar. When I dropped, carefully, to the other side, I marveled that I had once been afraid to drop a mere twelve feet into Arya's arms. _I'm a changed man. _

The soldiers gathered on the other side of the wall didn't even notice me. Their attention was focused on the massive door, which Eragon was apparently melting with his sword. _I saw that in Star Wars first. _I reached into my pack and pulled out two things: my utility belt and a bottle containing a dark liquid and another smaller bottle of a bright yellow liquid. When I straightened up, one of the soldiers had detached himself from the group and was blocking my way across the courtyard to Lady Lorena's stronghold.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"There are two answers to your question," I replied smoothly. "One is that I am your murderer, and am about to kill you. The other is that I am your savior, and will negotiate with the Varden for your release when this battle is over. Both possibilities exist in alternate realities, but your decision right now will decide which reality shall exist in our universe."

"Huh?"

"Just let me pass and you won't die," I said, sighing at his stupidity. Becoming king of Alagaesia would be a piece of cake if they were all this thick.

He raised his spear threateningly. "You'll be the one dying, mate!"

"I'll spare you anyway," I decided, and whacked him on the head with the butt of my pistol. He dropped like a stone. The clang of his metal helmet echoed around the enclosed courtyard, drawing the attention of the twenty or so soldiers who were gathered around the gates.

"Sorry for the interruption," I said, flashing my most disarming smile. "I shan't trouble you any longer." I tossed the bottle toward them.

As soon as it smashed, the two liquids combined in an intense burst of acrid yellow smoke. The men gave shouts of surprise. I took advantage of the confusion to dash across the courtyard and into Lady Lorena's mansion. Fortunately, there was a lack of security guards, and the cleaning staff I passed were happy to cower in corners as I raced past, navigating the winding hallways of the building. After a few minutes sprinting around, I came to a main hall, lined with portraits of regal-looking men and women, whom I assumed were of the Lorena line.

The Lady herself was sitting on her throne at the end of the room, watching three people who were chanting in what I recognized as the Ancient Language.

"Thank goodness for your presence!" she cried upon seeing me. "These spellcasters are trying to summon a Shade!" She gestured at a young man who was trapped between the three magicians.

"That doesn't sound good," I observed, and drew my pistol, aiming for the first of the three magicians, a middle aged woman.

"Cease your spell!" I commanded. She didn't even look at me. What was it with people not listening to me today?

Arya had explained to me about wards, and I understood the basic concept behind them. The ward was meant to withstand the force of the blow, keeping it from harming the person it was meant to protect. Usually, a simple ward could stop ten swords or arrows before a spellcaster would have to replenish its energy. According to my calculations, the force of a bullet traveling at 1,100 miles per hour was slightly faster than a sword swing, and would use up the ward's energy in, oh, two shots.

I was right. The second full metal jacket bullet went through her in fact, and right into the man they were trying to turn into a Shade. The remaining two magicians ceased their mutterings and turned on me, murder on there eyes. I felt scared for the first time that day. I had no direct defense against magic. I could only watch helplessly as they lifted their arms and-

Eragon and Arya burst into the room. I heard a roar and knew Saphira was close. I watched as the spellcasters engaged each other with their minds. The battle would have been short and in our favor except that a moment later several of Galbatorix's soldiers burst through a hidden doorway and drew their swords, advancing on Eragon and Arya. I shot one of them in the leg, and that frightened the other two off. Unfortunately, their temporary presence was enough to distract Eragon. The magician he was facing, a pudgy man with yellow teeth, grinned in triumph and renewed his attack. Eragon was caught off guard.

I had to act fast. I ran to one of the ornate stained glass windows that looked out into the courtyard, where the fight was still raging, and smashed it with a swing of my pack. I stuck my head out and yelled for the attention of one of my Gatling gunners. He looked up and waved. I gestured for him to fire at me. He looked puzzled, and I nodded. _You want me to shoot you? Yes!_

"Get down!" I hollered, throwing myself away from the window and onto the floor. Arya and Eragon dived for cover just in time as the wall chewed itself apart, disintegrating under the force of the fire. The windows exploded and the fancy pictures of Lorena's ancestors shredded themselves as the air became choked with dust. Stone shards and bits of wood flew everywhere. I was cut on the shoulder by the jagged edge of a picture frame and I saw Eragon's wards deflect a nasty-sized piece of glass.

The gunfire stopped as abruptly as it had began - the gunner was already out of ammunition. I coughed and rubbed dirt out of my eyes. Eragon and Arya struggled to their feet, unharmed but clearly shaken by the awesome display of firepower. I doubted they even understood exactly what had happened, but what mattered to them was that the two magicians were lying in crumpled heaps, puddles of blood oozing from their bodies.

Lady Lorena tottered over to us, calmly stepping over the bodies, completely ignoring the demolished wall, through which Eragon's bodyguards were now clambering.

"I must thank you for riding me of those despicable people before they could summon a Shade," she said gratefully.

"No problem, ma'am," said Eragon, smiling stupidly.

Lady Lorena frowned. "Not you," she said irritably, "Him." She looked at me. "I owe you a great debt, sir."

"All in the line of duty," I said solemnly, trying not to laugh as I bowed respectfully.

Suddenly, Eragon lurched forward and gasped, clutching his head. Outside, I heard Saphira give an earsplitting roar.

"Eragon!" Arya cried, grabbing him before he could collapse. I heard a loud thud outside: Saphira was making an emergency landing.

I dug in my pack for my makeshift medical kit. I pulled out a syringe of adrenaline and prepared to knock him back into consciousness.

"William, calm down, he's coming round now," Arya said, gently shaking Eragon by his shoulders.

Eragon's eyes fluttered open. "Oromis...and Glaedr…" he moaned.

"What about them," Arya said, suddenly alert.

Eragon held her gaze. A tear trickled down his cheek. "Dead."

A look of shock passed over the face of every elf in the room.

"Who's Oromis?" I asked to no one in particular. No one in particular answered me.

Nasuada and her entourage burst abruptly into the room. Eragon stopped abruptly. Apparently Oromis's identity was top secret. I made a mental note to ask about him later.

Feinster fell quickly after Lady Lorena surrendered to the Varden. Nasuada quickly established temporary headquarters in the mansion, and I was left to do as I pleased. This meant that, finally, I got Angela to play me in a "fair" game of knucklebones.

"How do you keep winning?" she demanded.

"They happened to be loaded."

She laughed and leaned back in her chair. "Of course they are," she grinned. "How did you do it?"

"Oh, let that be my secret," I grinned, sliding my gloves off. "Ready for me to play fair?"


End file.
